Someone in my club plays this move; it's certainly not bad, but most
of the time it transposes to other openings; the guy from my club
tries to get a Vienna-game, or a kind of Kingsgambit; I always
play ..Nf6,...d6, leading to a Pirc, which he doesn't like 🙂 So, I think
it's sound for white, but you have to be well prepared. IN "Unorthodox
openings" (Schiller-Benjamin), the authors call it "the best of the non-
standard moves"; 1..d5 or 1..c5 are two good possibilities for black,
they say (again there are transpositions to the Caro-Kann or the
French, or the Sicilian..)
While this move is sound, and certainly not risky, I don't think it
makes the best use of white's initial lead in time. If black is prepared
to fight against it, white can hope for nothing better than equality and
in a lot of cases, black can even gain the initiative. However, as a
transpositional opening into the Four Knights, or Vienna Gambit it's
fairly solid, though black must play ...e5. If black
plays ...c5, ...d5, ...c6, ...d6, or ...e6 as are common here, white's
lack of control in the center could become a weakness later in the
game, and even transpose into the French, Sicilian, or Caro-Kann
defenses, something white may have been trying to avoid! =) An
interesting idea for black might be:
1. Nc3 d5
2. d4 Nf6
3. Bg5 e6
4. e4
where I believe black has a slight advantage because white's c2 pawn
(normally used to assualt the strong d5 pawn) is impeded by the
knight on c3. White's fourth move, 4. e4, transposes into the French
defense where Black will normall follow either 4...Bb4 or 4...Be7. Any
other move by white gives black more space in the center and more
time to consoldiate his position. For instance:
1. Nc3 d5
2. d4 Nf6
3. g3!? e6
4. Bg2 c5!?
5. Bg5 Nc6
followed by either Nf3 or e3!? (?!) and Ne2, but the problem of the
impeded c2 pawn and black's c5 pawn give white headaches and make
life good for black.
On the flip side, though, the pawn on c2 will give white the potential to
castle queenside safely, where a pawn structure of d4, e3, f4, g4 and h
(3-5) could be very damaging to black's kingside. But this is just
speculation because all of those dark and light square holes could be
more trouble than they're worth.
I won't go into much more detail than that (mostly because I don't
have a board with me right now =)), but 1. Nc3 is probably not the
best move for serious play.