Weaver W. Adams famously claimed that the Vienna Game led to a forced win for White.

Lines other than 3...d5 give White at least an edge, however, making this a good choice for aggressive play at lower levels, where opponents are unlikely to know that 3...d5 is best.

Other lines for Black include 3...d6 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.Bb5 Bd7 6.d3, when the threat of Bxc6 followed by taking on e5 induces 6...exf4 7.Bxf4, leaving White with a pleasant position; and also 3...Nc6?

Black has several choices here; 3...Bc5 can transpose to the King's Gambit Declined after 4.d3 d6 5.f4 Nc6 6.Nf3; 3...Nc6 4.d3, 4...Na5, 4...Bc5 or 4...d6 are all playable; 3...Bb4 4.f4 Nxe4 5.Qh5 0-0 leads to wild but probably equal play, according to de Firmian in MCO-15.

[5] 3...Nxe4, 4.Qh5 (threatening Qxf7#) 4...Nd6 5.Bb3 when Black can either go for the relatively quiet waters of 5...Be7 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Nxe5 g6 8.Qe2 (or 8.Nxc6 dxc6 9.Qe5 0-0) Nd4 9.Qd3 Nxb3 10.axb3 Nf5 11.0-0 d6, which led to equality in Anand–Ivanchuk, Roquebrune 1992.

[6] Or the complexities of 5...Nc6 6.Nb5 g6 7.Qf3 f5 8.Qd5 Qe7 9.Nxc7+ Kd8 10.Nxa8 b6, which the Irish correspondence chess player and theorist Tim Harding extravagantly dubbed "the Frankenstein–Dracula Variation".

Lasker, simultaneous exhibition, Breslau c. 1902) Qd7!, with a large advantage for Black in view of his bishop pair and pawn center.

[11][12] The move 3.g3, the Mieses Variation, is a quiet continuation in which White fianchettoes his king's bishop, a line played by Vasily Smyslov on a few occasions, most notably in a win over Lev Polugaevsky in the 1961 USSR Championship.

That game continued 3...d5 4.exd5 Nxd5 5.Bg2 Be6 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.0-0 Be7 8.Re1 Bf6 9.Ne4 0-0 10.d3 Be7 11.a3 Nb6 12.b4, resulting in a position which the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings assesses as slightly better for White.

It is not a serious try for advantage, but is essentially a useful waiting move that gives White an improved version of Black's position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6.

Then the typical 4...Ng4 may be met by 5.d4 exd4 6.Na4, when 6...Bb4+, White's usual move in the mirror-image position, is impossible.

In the Vienna Gambit, defined by the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4, White sacrifices a pawn to gain control of the center.

As with its close relative, the sharp Muzio Gambit, White sacrifices the knight on f3 in return for a powerful attack against the black king.

It is named after Austrian theoretician Carl Hamppe and classified under ECO code C25.

Louis Paulsen played 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 four times with the white pieces – games against Meitner, Rosenthal, Gelbfuhs, and Bird in the Vienna 1873 chess tournament.

[15] This is an offbeat but playable alternative, as played (for example) by former world champion José Raúl Capablanca against Ilya Kan at Moscow 1936.

4.Kxf2 Qh4+ 5.Ke3 Qf4+ 6.Kd3 d5 leads to wild complications favouring Black, as in the famous Immortal Draw game Hamppe–Meitner, Vienna 1872.