When I said "that" is played always, I meant e5 in responce to knight f6, not sure if that was clear. I realize this is not a great game, his play and mine are both poor, however I mostly wanted to get the recording technique down.

Any comments appreciated, I'll try to play someone closer to my rating and record sometime soon.

LR

Nice video and well played! Your opponent didn't get a very comfortable position from the opening (c8-bishop is hard to develop) and he also played too fast. I liked your sac (i don't know if it was sound but sacs are fun) and attacking attitude in the game. I hope you post some more videos

Nice live commentary! I like your honesty about your lack of opening knowledge. I'm the same way. I think a standard line in this variation is: 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd4 3.c4 Nb6 4.d4 d6. Not sure if that's best for white though. But, I think you got a decent position as white anyways.

The nice thing about him playing ...Nb6 is that in forcing you to move your bishop, it helps you reorganize for a kingside attack (as you mention). Either Bb3,c3, Bc2 or Bd3 c3 (and Qc2 or Bc2) is going to be good for you. I like this position because you have a ready made attack...or at least pressure on the black king.

Perhaps after ....h6, you could try reorganizing your battery along the b1-h7 diagonal with Qe2, Bc2 and Qd3. It's pretty crude, but hard for black to meet since all his pieces are on the queenside. If you had played those moves with the knights in combination with reorganizing your queen and bishop, it would've been crushing.

Also after Qe7, I think Qe2 would've been strong. You can afford to take your time since black's position is so passive.

I like the sacrifice, intuitively it looks like it works (and it sounds like you felt the same way). Solid attacking game the whole way!

Thanks for the comments. I had a GREAT series of games vs an 1800 in which I went 2-1, I thought I had recorded 2 of them, but for both I apparently had my mic on mute....

I kinda knew the main lines of alekhine defence, up to I think 4) d4 for white, but that is exactly what the black player wants when he plays alekhine defence and I know no theory after those initial 4 moves. It just seems like 4 moves for white, even if it gains a big pawn center, without moving a piece isn't best.

I might try to post a few bird opening games, I've been following GM Henrik Danielson's teachings for a while now, however there is alot of material to memorize, he makes it seem easy with the way he plays.

LR

Sounds great. If you're interested in the bird's opening, you should check out themofro's excellent thread on the topic.