Viking trail

The Australian grandmaster David Smerdon has written a truly exciting book about some of the byways in the Centre Counter or Scandinavian Defence. The old main lines started 1 e4 d5 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 and generally condemned Black to a long defence. The apparent activity of the black queen tended to be outweighed by White’s lead in development and the fact that the queen itself, more often than not, degenerated into a target rather than a great and mobile force.
 
Smerdon is quite candid about the dangers which his advocated move of 2 … Nf6 would entail. But the variations are dramatic, it represents a one-stop shop as a black defence against 1 e4, and in spite of heavily computerised analysis, the tactics never conclusively work out in White’s favour. Meanwhile, both players are treading a tactical knife edge, so for aggressive players, good at calculation, Smerdon’s book is ideal.
 
Smerdon’s Scandinavian is published by Everyman Chess.