Pros and Cons of the Scandinavian Defense?

The title says it all. Approx. 80% of the opponents I face play Scandinavian Defense and therefore was looking for reasons besides the obvious.

I know this thread is old, but I'd love to help anyway for those who stumble in

Pros:

1. easy to understand

2. prevents white from taking full control of the center

3. low theory

4. solid and not an easy win, especially the Qd8 variant.

5. restricts white's choices to very few if he wants an advantage

Cons:

1. loses tempo w/ multiple Queen moves

2. not great to play for a win/ not many attacking chances

3. if white is well prepped, he certainly will get an advantage

4. passive/ less space

5. (just my opinion) dull/ not much variety to the resulting positions

"To venture upon such openings is ever ungrateful. Nothing can be gained by bringing the queen early into the thick of the fight. Why experiment on this truism? The amount of mental energy necessary to win, for Black, one position of this type would be sufficient to score a dozen regularly defended games - to say nothing of the things of considerable importance outside of chess that might be accomplished with it." - Emanuel Lasker (World Champion, 1894–1921)

It is forsaken at gm level! It is a total draw position but black can never take the initiative again and must defend his position for the rest of the game!!

pros:

1. gets your opponment out of prep

cons:

1. slav defense but down a few tempos
2. white has a significant advantage
3. white is ahead in development
4. the queen gets kicked around
5. white has a space advantage

GM Bent Larsen (a Scandinavian himself) said the Scandinavian Defence is an improved Caro-Kann. Black plays ...c6 and ...Qc7 just the same. With the Scandinavian move order black avoids variations of the Caro-Kann like the Exchange Variation, the Panov-Botvinnik Attack, the Advance Variation, the Fantasy Variation...

The loss of tempo is just an illusion.
For the sake of argument compare the following two simplified move sequences.

The Scandinavian Defence was played regulary by Carlsen (also a Scandinavian himself), e.g.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1768345 

Caro-Kann. Not Slav.

Slav would have a Pawn on c4.

@7
And not down any tempo.

i guess

the 0-0-0 lines for black are dubious

Your point being...

The key characteristics of the Classical Caro-Kann are:

1. Half-open White e-file vs half-open Black d-file. White's c-Pawn remains on c2 (rarely c3).
2. Black's c8-Bishop can develop (typically to f5, less often to g4) before playing e7-e6.
3. Black's c-Pawn typically takes two moves to reach c5; first c7-c6 then later c6-c5.

The Open Scandinavian has all of those characteristics. It's a Caro-Kann.

And Black doesn't actually waste a tempo getting there. It just looks that way because you've mis-counted.

In the Scandi, Black has to move his attacked Queen away from d5. That loses a move.

In the Classical Caro-Kann, Black trades a Black Pawn that moved twice (2. ... d7-d5 and then 3. ... dxe4) for a White Pawn that only moved once (e2-e4). That ALSO loses a move.

The same crap in a different wrapper.

the mainlines of the scandinavian and the caro kann are very different, the structures are the same but the piece placement is very different. which is why black is in more danger and the computer claims +0.5 compared to the slav or caro where its around +0.2

Certainly there are differences in the piece placement... otherwise there would be no need for two different names.

But the Scandi is a sub-type of the Caro-Kann structure, and people who automatically claim that the opening is bad because it "loses a tempo" and "brings the Queen out too early" are guilty of a very superficial assessment.

the thing is that black is often behind in development and more vulnerable to attack if he does not play very accurately. compare that to the caro kann where black can just hide behind his structure and white can try everything to break it but wont be able to. i think the reason why white is able to break blacks structure in the scandi is solely due to different piece placement and white being ahead in development

I only tend to lose to it when I'm really tilted.

The Black sides of the French, Scandi, Scandinavian Nimzowitsch, and Caro-Kann (along with the 2… d5 Alapin) all have the same goal: a setup with a bishop on f5, a knight on c6, and pawns on e6, d5, and c5, all by move 5. If Black can accomplish this somehow, Black will be better. Of course, this doesn’t happen. Black drops tempi in the Caro-Kann, blocks in the bishop in the French, allows an advantageous trade in the Scandinavian and Barmen Alapin, and blocks in the c-pawn in the Scandinavian Nimzowitsch. Thusly, none of these defenses get their perfect setup, and must maneuver in entirely separate ways to achieve equality at a much later move than they wish.

As for the Caro-Kann being a Scandinavian, I don’t quite agree. The Mieses-Kotrc may be similar to a 4… Bf5 Mainline in manner of tempi and pawn placement originally, but the vastly different piece placements make them play with completely separate ideas. Comparing the two is like comparing the Benoni to the Dragon Sicilian. Yes the pawn placements and tempi are similar and yet they’re so far removed from each other that nothing is the same.

in benoni there is a pawn on d5, in sicilian - no. While caro and scandi have the same pawn structure