Scandinavian defence, which is best in your opinion d8, d6 or Qa5 ?

D8 props and cons please 

D6 props and cons please 

Qa5 props and cons please 

Which is best in your opinion out of this 3 options.

John Bartholomew thinks it's d8 .

Magnus Carlsen have played last 3 games agaisnt Fabiano Caurana using only d8 .

I play Qd6 as the Q is centralized. And I win more difficultly facing Qd6. Easier White game against Qa5 and Qd8.

I've started playing Qd8 variation. I like the book published on the variation. The author doesn't give the early Nf3 variations that have the aim of playing an early c4. These are very sharp and I would be happy to play with either colour.

I like Qd8 because it feels contrarian which suits my character. I feel it give a psychological dimension as white feels like he should just be better.

d8. If u leave it in on a5 or d6 it's gonna get chased around later in the game and waste tempo (although I doubt I'm telling you anything u don't already know based on ur rating lol)

I have found the Scandahoovian plays a little better.

Qd8 is pretty safe and solid but black give white 1 free tempo for trading white e pawn with black d pawn

Qd6 i don't really know because i only studied it a bit but it seems pretty good

Qa5 in my opinion is very theoritical and dangerous and if white knows how to play it and black play 1 move wrong it's pretty easy to get disadvantage pretty early if black didn't know how to handle it well

i think it's Qd6

Speaking as an e4 player, I've never played against 3... Qd6. The Scandinavian is not a very assuming opening anyway, so anywhere sensible that you put the Queen will do. (3... Qe5+? is not considered sensible.)

3... Qa5 can be somewhat irritating to meet, but is mostly innocuous while 3... Qd8 gives White a free tempo and an easy game to hold. As I said, I have no experience with 3... Qd6.

Sadly, none of the options match my preferred move, Qe5.😢

John Bartholomew said 3...Qd6 might be the better Scandinavian, I think 3...Qd8 is being given as the more practical choice for club players. 3...Qd6 does score better in percentage than 3...Qd8. 

I don't have time to go into details,  but I think 3 Nf3 is more difficult for black to play against than 3 Nc3 is. 

If you don't mind additional complications and learn the theory then 2...Nf6 might be the way to go. The book Smerdon's Scandinavian is the bible for 2...Nf6. It's considered not quite as sound as 2...Qxd5 is but offers good counter chances in many lines. 

3...Qa5 and 3...Qd6 can lead to very sharp lines which, at my age, I can't retain. I've been playing 3...Qd8 for 3 years OTB now and it's scored well: P13, W7, D5, L1.

Some White players overreach early on, thinking they can blitz you off the board. If you can avoid your K getting caught in the centre (e.g. after a W d5 break), you come to positions that are more or less equal, but that W players tend to flounder with, looking for the correct strategy.

I had best results with Qd8 with Bf5-c6-e6 setup. It is the most safe and solid out of three cousins. Leads to positional game, where you mostly consider which pieces you need to trade in order to reach good endgame, positional game with not many tactics going on in most cases. As someone stated above with Qd8 setup white gets easy hold. True. But same goes for black as basically after three moves black has weakness-free position and white needs to act aggressively in order to achieve advantage which gives black counter-game chances. Black easily equalizes in this line, but if white plays solidly attack is the problem for black. Drawish or white/black converts with slight advantage. I have positive score against competition of my level using Qd8 line.

Qd6 variation with an early Ne5 from white side leads to sharp game. And queen may be a subject for discovery attacks (Bf4). Leads to exciting and lively games, but feels like positions are easier to handle as white player and white has larger room for error.  If white avoids early Ne5 or supported Bf4 stuff and play more conservatively, lines resemble Qd8 stuff.

With Qa5 I had really bad results against competition on my rating. Black has very fixed set of moves which can be played. Black needs to be really careful if wants to keep queen active on a5 or other squares. Black ofc can play retreat to d8 but he loses even additional tempo in comparison with immediate Qd8 line. Black needs to work hard to equalize and you need to truly outplay your opponent (being a better player at certain moment) to win a game.

P.S. Nakamura recently applied Qd8 scandinavian with bg7 fianchetto with great success in the last blitz world championship.

No offense, but I don't real want answers from 13 hundred players or 15 hundred or I need someone 2200+ preferably 

1750 is ok?

Граош

Граош

🤔

I am a patzer, so I guess you are not interested in my opinion. Anyway, GMs seem to stay away from ...Qa5 since a while because they realised that the whole system was not working.

The question is really about Qd6 or Qd8. John Bartholomew (JB) seems to be not quite happy with Qd8 and he would perhaps change to Qd6. I tried Qa5 (following the books by Wahls) and gave up after losing regularly against basically everybody. Later I tried quite long Qd8 following JB’s book on Chessable and gave up after two years. I didn’t like the system, as I have the impression that people playing with white were doing quite well with natural moves.

Now I am trying a short and sweet -book written by a GM for weak players, and I like it. It is based on ...Bf5 instead of JB’s ...Bg4. The thing is that the B on f5 can get attacked by pawns almost immediately, but I like the position with a pawn dawn and compensation. Basically you have to memorise very well two critical lines where white tries to attack, but nothing really scary. 

Usually you get a solid position with pawns on e6 and c6, and often the Q will go later to a5 (after a7-a5-a4) to connect the rooks. What I really like is that people playing natural moves as white can get bad positions from a strategic point of view.

But this is not for somebody for your rating, even not for a 1900 player, but it is perfect for patzer like to get playable games. The book is available in Chessable (written by GM Alex Colovic) for less that 4 dollars.

Scandi is like pretty much dead against this opening Novelty by Neural Networks.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/advanced-attacking-books?page=3

Thanks. I will check this later.