good style of presentation. maybe you confused Henry Bird (boring old english player with big sideburnz) with Harry Nelson Pillsbury (american player with amazing memory and blindfold skillz).

I think 1...g5 is underrated and not such a bad try .. I played it once against a weaker player who, i knew, was easily frazzled by unfamiliar positions... that game started 1.f4 g5 2.fg then ...h6 immediately.

OK White played really bad in this game-- first castling "into it", then opening the H-file, then getting a rook trapped on f7 and losing another piece on c3.

I think White needs to watch the ChessGym videos on open rook files.

That was a cool game.

You are totally right...I was confusing Bird with Pillsbury. So sorry. Bird was good too

Good attractive game by you. The opening reminds me of the Sicilian gambit 1.e4 c5 2.b4!? This 1.f4 g5 looks pretty dodgy to me. The Macho Grob works really well against the English opening 1.c4 g5, my friend IM Tim Wall loved to play this way.

The old Italian school of chess;
1.Grab the centre
2.Develop quickly
3.Open lines

You really seem to have mastered these concepts very well. During the whole game you did not waste a single tempo for mobilizing your pieces, with the exception of 1..g5 which does nothing.

Obviously white defended poorly. I suspect when he played Ne5, it was partly to exchange off your attacking pieces, but it broke the rule of defence; continue to develop when possible! You can take credit from his bad play, as you were very direct which put him under a lot of psychological pressure.

I would suggest that after you have finished your examination of Morphy and Andersson, you look at the games of Frank Marshall who was of a similar mind, but had to play against better defenders than Morphy ect.

If you have not already, I would also suggest you read " The game of chess" by Tarrasch. This book was Tarrasch's attempt to update the Italian school to the early 20th century, and give it a sounder positional basis.

I will see if I can find Tarrasch's book at a used book store.

By the way I found Lasker's book at a used book store and couldn't believe it! What a great find.

instead of playing Nf6 and trapping his rook, you could have won it easier by playing Nh6 and forking it and his queen... this way you don't have to give up a piece for it

I play the Bird a lot and i've never encountered that gambit... pretty interesting!

instead of playing Nf6 and trapping his rook, you could have won it easier by playing Nh6 and forking it and his queen... this way you don't have to give up a piece for it

I play the Bird a lot and i've never encountered that gambit... pretty interesting!

nice thoughts at the beginning... I play the bird exclusively and have never seen 1..g5. I do an early queenside fianchetto with queenside castling in my bird which isnt as common.

I spent a little time last week looking at the From Gambit (f4 e5) cause there is a guy locally that plays the bird as white, and i thought i'd try that against it

I think this was an interesting video. Although I have to say that if anyone tries 1. f4 against me with the typical plan of e3 and Nf3, I'll just play a London System with Black (1...d5 2...Nf6 and 3...Bf5) and utilize the plans I use as white against an opponet who probably will be shocked somebody hasnt played like a fish in the opening

From's Gambit may be one of the more testing responses to the Bird but ultimately if white has studied the theory (and most Bird players have) white will survive with an extra pawn wthout too much difficulty.