The Scandinavian Defense, described in the poem Scachs d'amor, is the oldest opening by Black recorded in modern chess.

[3][4] Analysis by Scandinavian masters in the late 19th century showed it is playable for Black; Ludvig Collijn played the opening with success.

Although the Scandinavian Defense has never enjoyed widespread popularity among top-flight players, Joseph Henry Blackburne and Jacques Mieses often played it, and greatly developed its theory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It was an occasional choice in this era for top players including Siegbert Tarrasch, Rudolph Spielmann, and Savielly Tartakower.

[6][7] A regular user from the 1950s onwards was Yugoslav International Master (IM) Nikola Karaklajic, but a lengthy period of non-support by top players ended by the 1960s, when former world championship finalist David Bronstein and women's world champion Nona Gaprindashvili played it occasionally.

In 1995, the Scandinavian Defense made its first appearance in a world chess championship match, in the 14th game of the PCA final at New York City.

[10] Carlsen used the opening as Black in a blitz game to defeat Viswanathan Anand at the 2019 Grand Chess Tour stop in Kolkata.

[12] The main continuation after 2.exd5 is to immediately recapture the d5-pawn with the queen, developing it early and controlling a sizable quantity of squares on the board, often leading to sharp games.

[21] If Black plays correctly, White should not have sufficient compensation for the sacrificed pawn, but it can be difficult to prove this over the board.

Prior to the 20th century, it was often considered the main line, and was characterized as "best" by Howard Staunton in his Chess-Player's Handbook,[24] but was gradually superseded by 3...Qa5.

[25] Bronstein's game featured the older line 4.d4 Nf6, while other grandmasters, including Karl Robatsch, explored fianchetto systems with 4.d4 g6 and a later ...Ng8–h6.

The line's reputation suffered after a string of defeats, however, including two well-known miniatures won by Bobby Fischer against Robatsch in the 1962 Chess Olympiad (later published in My 60 Memorable Games) and William Addison in 1970.

It is played particularly by IMs John Bartholomew and Daniel Lowinger, and by the GMs David Garcia Ilundain and Nikola Djukić.

This move, called the Gubinsky-Melts Defense, offers another way to play against 3.Nc3, and it has been growing in popularity in recent years.

At first sight the move may look dubious, exposing the queen to a later Nb5 or Bf4, and for many years it was poorly regarded for this reason.

In 1990, David Letterman played this line as Black in a televised game against Garry Kasparov, and was checkmated in 23 moves.

Less popular is 4...Qxe5, since the queen has moved twice in the opening and is in the center of the board, where White can attack it with gain of time (Nf3).

The idea is to delay capturing the d5-pawn for another move, avoiding the loss of time that Black suffers in the ...Qxd5 lines after 3.Nc3.

GM John Emms calls this the main line of the 2...Nf6 variations, saying that "3.d4 is the common choice for White...and it is easy to see why it is so popular.

In this line, Black gives up the d-pawn in order to achieve rapid development and piece activity; the resulting play is often similar to the Icelandic Gambit.

[36] Another common response is 3.c4, with which White attempts to retain the extra pawn, at the cost of the inactivity of the light-square bishop.

In general, none of these sidelines are believed to offer White more than equality, and the overwhelming majority of masters opt for 2.exd5 when facing the Scandinavian.

[42][43] The Scandinavian is thus arguably Black's most "forcing" defense to 1.e4, restricting White to a relatively small number of options.

This has helped to make the Scandinavian Defense fairly popular among club-level players, although it remains relatively rare at the grandmaster level.