How to Defuse the Four Knights Scotch, the Cool Way

Are you a staunch 1...e5 player and hate playing against the dreaded 4N Scotch? Well, look no further—I've got just the solution for you.

The Premise

As you probably know, the mainline 4N Scotch position arises after the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4. Or 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3—both move orders are valid for White, although the latter (Scotch order) is less practical as it requires you to have a response for other 4th moves from Black, of which there are quite a few.

The starting position of the Four Knights Scotch

The overwhelming main move here is ...Bb4, pinning the knight with a threat of taking on e4 and getting ready to castle next. While this is a fine option which leads to (relatively) simple equality if played correctly, I personally haven't liked playing the Black side of it because I felt as though it's the sort of opening where White's position is safe everywhere and he can always attempt to grind out the win with his flawless structure and tricky move orders in the mainlines to throw you off. As such, I propose the Schmid Defence to the Four Knights Scotch, which begins after the move 5...Nxe4!? in the above diagram.

What is the main point, first of all? Well, following 6.Nxe4 Qe7, it turns out it wasn't even a piece sacrifice—Black will regain the piece in short order no matter what. To illustrate, let's take a brief look at the mainline of the Schmid:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4 Nxe4 6. Nxe4 Qe7 7. f3 d5 8. Bb5 Bd7

How play normally proceeds from here is White will ruin Black's structure with Bxc6 and then castle short, while Black regains his piece with ...dxe4 and, this may surprise some of you, he castles queenside. The resulting middlegames are full of imbalances with plenty of winning chances for both sides, but even here Black usually has an edge in the familiarity department. it should be noted that objectively, the position is dynamically balanced in spite of the shattered structure around Black's king. If you're interested in seeing more and would like to check out my prepared lines, here's my full study (Special thanks to @NoseKnowsAll for making it accessible for lower-level players, having added some beginner-friendly chapters!)

Why play the Schmid?

Most importantly, the surprise factor. Carefully selecting offbeat lines to use in your repertoire generally produce good results—especially for online Blitz games—but it's even better when they're fully sound because you can comfortably bring it to classical OTB play without fear that your lines will be refuted by the most well-prepared players. Additionally, the line is just really fun to play! Black outscores White in the Schmid by over 10% in the Lichess 2200+ no Bullet database, which is quite remarkable given the sample size of 3000+ games.

To conclude, here's an example game that I witnessed which was employed in a recent tournament at my local chess club. A buddy of mine @chessb2020 was on the receiving side of the beatdown, unfortunately :(

He mentioned to me afterwards that he came up with 7.Nb5 over-the-board, after having faced the line against myself in some casual blitz games a while back. The move itself isn't bad by any means—in fact, it's one of the critical lines given in my study—but his lack of preparation was evident when he proceeded to trade queens into an endgame down a clean pawn, as opposed to correctly sacrificing it for development compensation. 8.Be2 is what he should have played, but as played in the game it was all downhill from there, and his now-2200 opponent showed impeccable technique to convert it into a win. He was prudent enough to resist playing ...a6 until the right moment, for something like 14...a6?? would fail miserably to the tactical shot 15.Nxd6! with a roughly equal position thereafter. To put the icing on the cake, White went on to win a second pawn with 24...f6! after which the d4-pawn hangs on pain of back-rank mate.

That's all for my first blog post on my opening studies. Good luck to anyone who picks up this line—but don't tell too many people about it :P
- pd159