yum...
what say you about this non-stop, shoot from the hip, attack attack attack opening? does Black have a solid refutation once the king is forced to recapture on f7? is it too much too soon? or with the king in an exposed position, does white have a lasting advantage?
for an example: http://www.soundkeepers.com/chess/tools/replaygames.php?id=4
Its good against inexperienced players who don't know the lines, but with accurate play, black still has a good chance even with his king being so exposed. The Lolli attack really doesn't help the situation for white I think, except hope black takes the d4 pawn opening up the e-file, rather then playing Bb4+.
White scores ~72% after 6.Nxf7
However, the attack is unsound. With accurate defense black should do no worse than draw, and should more often win. Accurate defense for many mortals is a pipe dream. I have a positive record against the Fried Liver Attack, but have nearly always made one critical error that my opponent failed to exploit in my wins. My losses stem from similar errors.
Nxd5 is no good. It's given a ? mark for good reason. Both the Fried Liver and the Lolli are strong options for White. Pinski gives some analysis in his book by some super strong, famous GM's.
[Event "TWO KNIGHTS ANALYSIS"]
[Date "2005.10.26"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[PlyCount "25"]
[TimeControl "60"]
{190MB, Fritz8.ctg, CASE-2B1253CA11
} 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5
5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxf7 (6. d4 $1 exd4 (6... Bb4+ 7. c3 Be7 8. Nxf7 Kxf7 9. Qf3+
Ke6 10. Qe4 Rf8 11. O-O a6 12. Rd1 b5 13. Bb3 Bb7 14. dxe5 Na5 15. Bxd5+ Bxd5
16. Qxh7 $13) 7. O-O Be6 8. Re1 Qd7 9. Nxf7 Kxf7 10. Qf3+ Kg8 11. Rxe6 Rd8 12.
Bg5 Qxe6 13. Bxd8 Qe1+ 14. Bf1 Qe6 {
And White's Attack is strong according to Fine}) 6... Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 8. Nc3
Ncb4 (8... Nce7 9. d4 c6 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bxe7 Bxe7 12. O-O-O Rf8 13. Qe4 Rf4 14.
Qxe5+ Kf7 15. Nxd5 cxd5 16. Bxd5+ Kf8 17. Bb3 Rf5 18. Qe4 g6 19. h4) 9. Qe4 c6
10. a3 Na6 11. d4 Nac7 12. Bf4 Kf7 13. Bxe5 {
And White is much better according to Euwe} *
You can plug it into an engine and check it out if you want. The Fried Liver is a fine choice, it just requires some serious precision from both sides, which is something patzers like us don't have. 🙂 The Lolli is just a way to get a better Liver.
Thanks for the excellent analysis, Tony.
Two small footnotes: ChessBase online database has two games that reached the position at the end of your analysis; balck won both. Second, Hiarcs 9 disagrees with Euwe's assessment, giving -0.21 ( a slight advantage for black--albeit considerably less than black's "material advantage" ).
Yeah, I plugged them into my comp. too. My only beef with doing it in a computer is that computers tend to be overmaterialistic and bad at handling imbalances. I would tend to agree with a human (especially Reuben Fine and Max Euwe!), but who knows! I am actually really surprised that Black won both of the games. I always think it's harder to defend those kinds of positions. Also the small sample size doesn't really let us draw any conclusions. It's a super interesting line in any case, not to mention it has one of the sweetest names for an opening ever. Who thought of naming it the Fried Liver Attack, and who let it stick!? 🙂
Originally posted by Knightlore5... Na5, instead of 5... Nxd5 leads to the main line of the Two Knights Defense and avoids the Fegatello. Allegedly, black has a slight edge there, although white still scores ~ 52%. I prefer to let the Fried Liver come, and defend accurately (if I can) with the idea of demonstrating that white's attack is unsound. I have failed more than once, but I've succeeded more than I failed. It can be thrilling to march my king towards the center of the board, where my opponent's queen lurks, and then win in the endgame after surviving a vicious assault.
Isn't Black supposed to play Na5 pretty early so as to avoid all the hassle? Sorry for the vagueness, taking a quick dip into the forums and out again.
Of course, it is important to trust strong humans, and not rely on software for the evaluation of the position. Nearly a year ago, I participated in GM Boris Alterman's playchess.com classes on the Fried Liver. He said that black is okay with accurate defense. From time to time I refer to the analysis stored on my hard drive as a result of the lecture.
I've become one of those scholastic coaches who teach the Fegatello to my pupils ( I felt some pride yesterday when I heard a third grader say, "that's the Fegatello Opening" ). I teach it so they can use it, and so they know how to defend against it.