I've never really studied openings too much. I'm sure it's why I never got very good. Playing on here has helped me be more consistent, and I'm able to recognize certain patterns now, but I still largely play chess via brute force analysis of positions and simply trying to find the “best” move. I generally find that I make the “correct” play based on my own analysis when I decide to look up what opening I just used.

Getting to the point…I looked up the opening to a game I'm currently playing and according to this site I was “wrong”

1. e4—–d5

2. exd5—–Nf6

3. Nc3—-Nxd5

This was all fairly straightforward…but apparently

4. Nxd5

Is incorrect. Since the game is ongoing, you probably shouldn't explain to me why that's a losing move. What I'd like is for someone to explain the “correct” move to me.

4. Bc4—–Nb6

I've spent some time trying to analyze it, but I'm still not to the point where I would make that move if I'm white, or respond “correctly” to it if I'm black. To me the response still seems to be 4…Nxc3 5.bxc3 which isn't a position I like if I'm white.

Any insight is appreciated.

Hi Wandu,

I play the Center Counter Defense as Black all the time so I know a little bit about this line.

4.Nxd5 for White is not a losing move. “Losing” is way too strong of a word. White has a few options. 4.Nxd5 or 4.Bc4 are both fine.

As I'm sure you're aware, many times there is no “best” move. Sometimes several moves can all be considered equally good.

The benefits of 4.Bc4 is that it develops a piece and White is one step closer to castling. Hard to find fault in that. In this line Black probably won't play Nxc3 because that means he would have just spend two moves moving his knight, only to see it exchanged. (White's best way to recapture is probably Qf3 and then after …f6 dxc3.)

After 4.Nxd5 Qxd5 the game can probably be considered even… which is probably the biggest fault of 4.Nxd5… White should be looking for a line where Black can equalize so quickly.

Note that after 4.Bc4 Black has other options besides 4…Nb6. For example, I've played 4… c6 in that position. 4…e6 is also okay.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the response Ed. I appreciate your insight.

I should have put “losing” in quotes, as I meant it in the sense of Nxd5 being a suboptimal/incorrect move.

When I was playing with that site I linked to, when I try to make that move it mocks me and says “You can do better than that! Try another move!!” I'm not sure how much I can trust a site that uses that much excessive punctuation, but apparently the consensus opinion is that 4.Nxd5 is a mistake.

Generally I find that opening is the weakest stage in my game, so any move that results in the game being considered even is fine with me. My plan is usually to disrupt my opponents opening as best I can and come into the midgame about even, then try to find my edge there once we're off book. Sometimes this allows me to defeat a substantially “better” player, and sometimes it causes me to make a critical error very early, but either way I find it interesting.

4.Bc4—–Nxc3

5.Qf3—–f6

6.Qxc3

That was the sequence I was missing. I like this position a lot if I'm white. I tend to not even look for forced moves like 5…f6 early on, so I'm unlikely to make moves that rely on them. I suspect if I'm black (given where my rating is and thus my opponent pool) I might get white to respond with 5.bxc3 often enough that the exchange is a net win for me, but I suppose I shouldn't count on my opponents being as foolish as I am.

Looking at it, I think I would tend to prefer 4. Bc4—–c6 if I'm black. To me it seems like 4…nb6 means I've now spent THREE moves to get my knight to b6, which is not where I want my knight.

Again. Thanks for the free lesson.

No problem.

As you probably already assumed, I just now noticed my 6th paragraph is missing a word. It should read: …“which is probably the biggest fault of 4.Nxd5… White should NOT be looking for a line where Black can equalize so quickly.”

There is a flaw in Bc4. An agressive black player will play Nxc3, followed by Qxd1 (should white take the knight with pawn b2) or leave white with a double pawn. Which in both cases will make life hard on the white player.

So it is understandable white would want to play Nxd5.