Scandinavian Defense With 3...Qd8

The Qd8 Scandinavian is a very underrated defense for black! Flexible, solid and rich in chances, it’s a perfect weapon to have in your repertoire against e4.

After white plays Nc3, chasing the provocative Scandinavian queen to move, black has to choose between three sensible moves, Qa5, Qd6 and Qd8. The last move, Qd8, visually makes least sense and yet it’s a very sound option.

Retreating the queen all the way back to its original square might seem like a waste of tempo, and indeed it is. White is now a clear tempo up in development. White has developed a knight, whereas black has no pieces developed. This tempo comes at a cost though. Th developed knight sits on the c3 square, a square that should be unoccupied. It’s for a good reason that most openings don’t have that move in any variation. White wants to play c3 or c4! Not have the knight blocking the advance of the important pawn.

So white has made a concession in order to force the queen back to d8. Unlike in other two variations, black is now safe and he doesn’t have to move the queen for the third time. Black has virtually saved a future tempo with losing one on move three.

Such is the nature of the move. The variation is, same as other two, flexible for black. It’s more of an opening system than an opening. It requires little studying of theory and a lot of understanding. The pawn structures will almost always involve the Caro-Kann pawns on e6 and c6, and the pieces will almost always be deployed to the same squares.

That makes the Qd8 Scandinavian a great defense for players who don’t have 200 hours to study the Najdorf or the Ruy Lopez. Once you grasp the basics and learn the few lines that are complicated, your understanding of the opening will improve by playing it.

The best way to get familiar with it is to analyze the games of strong grandmasters who have employed it. That way you will learn which mistakes to avoid and get a better feel for where your pieces belong, which attacking plans work and don’t work, and which are the most common issues for black.

Here are some example games to study:

Caruana vs Carlsen, 2014 Olympiad
Svidler vs Adams, 1999
Leko vs Adams, 1999
Ivanchuk vs Artemiev 2017

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