How to respond to 1.Nf3 or 1.Nc3

Hello! I was wondering what the best opening would be to respond to 1.Nf3 or 1.Nc3.

Let me elaborate. There is a pretty decent guy at my chess club who always starts off with the knights. Even when he is black and i play e4 or d4 or try to play and functioning opening, he always plays the knights first no matter if he is white or black. As he always does that, i was hoping to find some sort of opening where i can respond to that opening as its quite frustrating. Any tips?

justvplay queens gambit declined structure against it, so d5/e6/Nf6 etc.

One safe option is always to develop the opposing knight accordingly. So against 1 Nf3 play 1...Nc6, against 1 Nc3 play 1...Nf6 (which if you check the chess.com Explorer is by far the most common response).

Explorer tells me that the most common reply to 1 Nf3 is actually 1...d5, where you grab central space and the pawn is defended from capture by your queen. That's not the case with 1 Nc3.

If your opponent plays a less common opening move then a good strategy is to just stick to basic opening principles and put one or more pawns in the center followed by developing your pieces to the center.

Thank you everyone! Recently i tried all of the ideas, and all seemed to actually work against anyone that played it. Thanks! Also, ακόμα προσπαθώ να χωνέψω ότι ο Παναγιώτης Φρεντζάς himself απάντησε στο thread.

That's not a terrible move, but I wouldn't recommend blocking the c pawn in an opening that's likely to feature the c and d files opening (after 1.Nf3 you can't play e5 right away)

Yeah, probably so, for the same reason I called 1...Nc6 bad against 1.Nf3.

Although white has a little more freedom, because 1.Nc3 Nf6 and white can play 2.e4

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Nf6 is probably the best reply to both 1. Nf3 and 1. Nc3, at least that seems to hold true in my own experience.

Against 1. Nf3, the "main line" 1. ..d5 works OK if your opponent plans to transpose to the Queen's Gambit Declined, but against a conventional Reti Opening (where 2. c4 is to follow), it is rather weak, in my experience.  Black can't close the center in the Reti system unless white allows it, and since I don't (I prefer open positions), the d5 pawn invariably creates weakness for black in the center.  None of the Experts I face play the main line against me (I play the Reti as my standard opening), all play either Nf6 of c5 in reply.

In the case of 1. Nc3, the purpose of Nf6 is to discourage 2. e4, which though playable is easy for black to stabilize with 2. ..e5 which more often than not transposes to a four knights game (very sound for black).  Playing Nc6 first, however, allows white to transpose into the Vienna game or the Vienna Gambit, which are more dynamic for white.

The important thing to remember is that both 1. Nc3 and especially 1. Nf3 are basically waiting moves, white wants black to commit to a plan in the center.  Since Nf6 is equally non-committal (Nc6 closes off important transposition options to the Sicilian and the Benoni Defenses), it is the more correct reply to both knight openings, as opposed to Nc6.

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"How to respond to 1.Nf3 or 1.Nc3"
++ The most testing reply to both is 1...d5.

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Check out this beautiful game. https://youtu.be/cVt9-pFcXxs?si=ymkSNsbX8vq4Mrs2

Depends on what your repertoire is.

This is a 4-year-old, long dead thread that was resurrected by a spammer for no reason.