A Compact Way To Meet the Ponziani and Göring Gambit
Meeting 1.e4 with 1...e5 is both strong and good for your chess development. One of the downsides of playing 1.e4 e5 as Black is that White has a number of good sidelines and gambits that can be dangerous for Black. Read on for how to neutralize two of White's better tries in a small number of lines.
Poziani
The Poziani is a logical sideline where White tries to occupy the centre directly after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc3 3.c3. In order to prevent White from occupying the full centre Black must act directly.
The starting position of the Poziani
There are two natural moves for Black. The first is 3...d5, if White will not go for the centre directly then Black should! It is very important that after 4.exd5 Qxd5 White cannot play Nc3 winning a tempo because he has a pawn on the c3 square.
The logic of the 3...d5 mainline is to challenge the centre when White declines to occupy it. The tactical detail for why this works is that White cannot win a tempo on Black's queen in this position.
These lines have a great reputation, but a practical downside is that after the main move 4.Qa4 f6 Black is going to be playing a pretty non-standard pawn structure. Perfectly sound, but maybe not the best practical choice against a rare opening.
The other main move is 3...Nf6, attacking the e4 pawn. After the mainline 4. d4 exd4 5. e5 Nd5 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Bd2 Bxd2+ 8. Nbxd2 d6 Black gets an Alapin Sicilian type structure and an equal game. However, the main reason I would advocate that you play this way is that the same approach will allow you to neutralize the dangerous Göring Gambit.
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After the other mainline 3...Nf6 Black gets a good game and you get a defense against the Göring gambit for free
Göring Gambit
The Göring Gambit occurs after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. c3:
The starting position of the Göring Gambit
This is a very dangerous gambit to accept as Black as the Lichess database shows. In fact, if you believe the database statistics playing 4.c3 is White's best move at the club level!
Game statistics for the Göring Gambit from the last 10 years at 2000+ Lichess and higher. These show the gambit scores better than the mainline Scotch for White!
Scary right? Accepting the gambit is considered good for black at the top level and is the most principled way to play. But simpler and just as sound is to decline the gambit with 4...Nf6, resulting in a direct transposition to the Poziani! Black can also decline with 4...d5, but these lines are independent of the Poziani and you have to know more theory.