What is a better opening Scandanavian or Benoni

tell what is better

They are completely different systems--one is against e4 and the other against d4--comparing them is pointless

Probably scandinavian since it's more solid and the counterattacking benoni is considered unreliable these days. Both give white some advantage.

I'm very confused on how people rated 1500 can deem a very popular and sound opening unreliable...

Theoretically, White always has a slight advantage from the opening as long as they play it well. I myself prefer the Benoni because it gives plenty of counterplay for black. In the Scandanavian White develops as he pleases and the whole idea is that black tries to make white regret developing the Knight to c3. They are both sound openings but to say that the Benoni is "unreliable" is not really correct. When I see a title next to your name then I may take your word for it...but still play it because until you are at a master level none of these debates matter.

Personally I don't have much respect for the Scandinavian. I've had several major wins against it - all I seem to have to do is to develop faster than Black and his position ruins itself to defend against threats! It just seems so impractical to bring the queen out that early only to lose time on it. I know it's perfectly valid, but I just simply haven't been shown that by another player yet. By the way, I play the 4. d4 lines in the main line.

The Benoni is a great defense for Black IMO. Especially the Benko Gambit - you give up a pawn to get incredible positional pressure and a development lead (or rather, very free development and lots of piece activity). Here are some interesting Black wins with the Benoni from a tournament I'm hosting:

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=20099459

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=20957991

Here's one of my own interesting games-in-progress with the Benko Gambit:

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=21018651

It's a very fun opening to play, for both sides! Just be careful with the Benko Gambit, it's sharp ;)

To me the main idea of the Benko as black isn't to get a developmental lead and crush your opponent. The Benko is more of a positional gambit. The idea is that if Black can trade down into an endgame and do some subtle manuevering of his pieces then he stands to win the endgame because of the strong pressure he can create on the Queenside on the openfiles. I too am a big fan of the Benko. It can be avoided as White but the Benoni is far from inferior for black. The Taiminov variation ( playing f4 early ) is an extremely tactical game that reminds me of some of the themes that occur in sharp versions of the Semi-Slav.

I don't play quite as positionally, but I see what you mean there. Black has a solid pawn structure and good chances to get a c-file connected passer. Personally, I like to use the g7 Bishop for tactical purposes on the long diagonal, people seem to forget it's there!

So I guess my point is, the Benko Gambit can give Black a positional or tactical edge. In my game posted above, for instance, 18... Ng4! makes a double attack on the Rook and white's undefended dark-square Bishop, ensuring to either win the exchange (material gain) or to completely own the long diagonal (positional gain). In fact, after the exchanges and a1-Rook getting out of the way of the Bishop, there was 20... Bd4 winning the exchange by force - converting the positional plus into material gain. (either Rook escape move leads to a knight fork)

Ok, in modern chess openings it says "many grandmasters consider the Benoni simply unreliable." and Kasparov says it's terrible. In the taimanov variation, the natural move by black has been refuted so he has to deal with the less natural retreat, securing white a moderate advantage. I'm not biased at all towards the benoni; in fact, I used to love it and finding out about the theoretical problems of it made me stop playing it!

There's a simple solution: don't play the Taimanov Variation! There are tons of other choices - Benko Gambit, Hromodka System, Czech Benoni, or just playing an early g6. Lots of other lines.

And let's not forget, these are GMs talking. How many club-level players are going to understand the theoretical subtleties of an early f4, or know how to play it? It's not reliable at the top level. Us regular folks are not at the top level. Unless you're playing IMs and GMs, you shouldn't be that worried about theoretical problems...

We should if we don't have counterplay and/or facing a crushing attack on our king.

lol I use both Scandinavian and Benoni...

Bobby Fischer used to claim that the King's Gambit was losing as White and was terrible. He then proceded to get his ass handed to him by Spassky in a game in which Spassky played what opening? The King's Gambit.

Also, if you have been watching any of Roman Dzindzichashvili's videos, you'd know that even the most well known theoreical openings are open for improvement and lines that were thought to be good are not good at all and vise versa. That is where the term "novelty" stems from. 

Just because Kasparov thinks that the Benoni is not good does not mean that he has not lost may games against it. I can see if we were making talking about the Polish opening or other very odd openings but let's be serious. 

I think that many world champions say that an opening is terrible if they use it and loose so that the blame is on the opening rather than their mid and end game play...

Actually, I have had some bad losses when I played the benoni and my opponent played those lines. You could argue that white has to play well, but on the other hand... well black has to be more careful that he's not much worse! It was another reason for me to stop playing it. Let's face it, if the benoni gave black equal play, it would be one of the most popular and respected openings. It would be like the equality of the QG, except black has many chances to win. Unfortunately, a concession often has to be made on the black side. Also, keep in mind black has to be more careful than white is also. Who wouldn't want an opening with plenty of counterplay? You say don't trust kasparov but you do say trust dzindzichashvilli because he agrees with you. Keep in mind he prefers the guioco piano and so he will come up with some novelties. Many openings where black counterattacks can be very positive but the benoni is an exception. That taimanov variation (and even the lines without f4 are annoying) is absolutely crushing and makes me feel very bad for the poor benoni. And who told you that all openings lead to a white advantage? Actually the opposite is true. Against e5 only the ruy lopez can give white an advantage with best play. Most openings do in fact lead to equality but not the ones listed. In the scandinavian black has a solid position even at a disadvantage where in the benoni white's advantage is threatening to whipe black out.

I fully understand that most openings are ok for lower levels, but not the benoni. Even at my level black is very uncomfortable. Sorry guys but what happened in my benoni games with f4 have just crushed my thoughts about it.

There is no point in arguing with you because you will always think you are right. You are a weak player who will condemn lines because some super GM says they are bad and then when they appear OTB you will be absolutely smoked because you have no idea why they thought they were bad to begin with. 

Also, I can avoid all the f4 Taiminov nonsense in the Benoni with 2. ... e6. This also leads to more flexibility because you can play a Nimzo or Semi-Slav or whatever you'd like (within reason) depending on what White's reply is.

Btw, just recently there was a game between NM Schmelov and IM Foygel that I watched in which Schmelov played a Benoni and the game was a draw. Schmelov is a walking opening encyclopedia so I'm sure if he's playing it OTB in tournament play that it isn't complete garbage. That coupled with the fact that he gets favorable results with it.

So please don't bother replying because we are all sick of reading your rants that is nothing more than baseless dribble.

If someone spent the same amount of effort on playing against the benoni as someone with the black pieces who will do anything to stay alive, I'm betting on the white player. That is what I am saying. He should be able to get the advantage and he'll have to suffer from black's counterplay. This does not mean that he will win. But I as well as mco use that term "unreliable" because if you made that your main move, people would know about it and try to work against it by studying it. it's just hard to stay confident with it and although it can give you many wins, it could backfire if by chance your opponent does know the theory. You can show me many wins by those who are willing to take chances but you have to take the downside into full consideration. I don't call the scandinavian unreliable because black still has a fine position even if he's a little worse. So by "unreliable" I don't mean "unplayable" but it being not a safe choice is why it would more often be used as a suprise weapon so that the opponent is screwed since he didn't book up and because he didn't see it coming. Why I think it's best as a suprise weapon is in my first sentence. And I fully admit that suprise value can be the whole reason for winning games. But it won't always work and that's where my bad losses with it come from. I should probably use a KID order to hopefully avoid the taimanov variaiton because I still love the positions that come out of the non f4 lines but of course that's the major line. If there is a person famous for his all benoni system, the strategy would be to study the crap out of it and go from there. If I was that guy, I'd be annoyed because he would have good lines out of my favorite opening but he hadn't lost yet, it's just hard to rely on trying to convert a disadvantage into a win. With GM's of course this could be a serious problem.

And if you think I'm weak, why don't you play me. You don't seem to be much better.

Fine, just play whatever opening you want, I don't care. It's just not an opening that you can safely use no matter what if your "secret" gets found out. But just play chess for fun. I'm done annoying you. I accept the choice, but cmon, you can't even say that there are any drawbacks to playing a benoni? I mean I think there at least some justifications to why I wouldn't be comfortable with it, because it's almost refuted? And my uscf rating hasn't fleshed out enough because I haven't been able to go to many tournaments even though my chess.com rating has improved. God, I didn't put it up there to be criticized when it's  higher than that!

The Benoni shows up occasionally at the GM level. Also, Fischer played the Benoni several times in his 5-million dollar match against Spassky. I think the Benoni is pretty reliable, despite some of the criticism it faces.

The Scandinavian is a little more rare. Many players don't like the fact that they're losing tempos with early Queen moves. But it's easy to learn, and has always been an interesting surprise weapon, even at the top level.

Some Benoni lines are quite alright... some popular ones are strategically refuted.  Sorta like the Dragon, the KID, the Caro-Kann, the French, and just about every single other imbalancing black defense!!!

The Scandinavian strikes me as ... bad :P.  But the mainline in it also leaves white with only the tiniest of advantages, and the nice thing about it is that black likely knows it better than white.

Either of these lines are playable, I've personally used the Benoni (even the 'refuted' Taimanov allowing line) in tournaments... worked out quite nicely :).

i like apples.  theyre much better than pears.  but you might like pineapple, thats fine too.  it depends on the situation.  i dont eat either of the friuts you want me to opine about however.