Im going to play the birds, dutch (leningrad)...but what is a fun defense to e4? Im trying to avoid the sicillian, but I might end up playing it if there are no other viable options. Thanks guys/gals.

Does "fun defense" rule out "really sound defense?" For example, you could play gambit lines with Black that are not so terrific with best play by White, but are still a lot of fun to play, depending on your temperament: a) Latvian Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5?!), b) Elephant Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5?!), or the c) the Borg or Macho Grob (1.e4 g5?!).

They can all be fun, but are almost certainly not sustainable repertoire tools for aspiring players. Up a notch on the list might be the Scandinavian, the Alekhine, and the Modern. In any case, "fun" is defined by the practitioner, I'm guessing. 

The Qd6 scandi is a fun defense. I play it a lot in blitz and find it can trip up even veteran e4 players because of how rare it is.

Well a fun sound line would be best. I mean dutch is occasionally seen at high levels, but I rarely (never) see the latvian or elephant....I was wondering about just playing 1..e5. So if 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5!?  Just trying to get all of my options. Thanks for your post!

e6 the french defence genius or would that be 1.e4 resigns 1-0

Yeah I have played the 3...Qd6 some before. I might give it a go again.

Since you play the dutch against d4 it makes a lot of sense to either play the french or pirc against e4. The main reason for this is that you then can use an alternate move-order (1. d4 e6 or 1. d4 d6 followed by f7-f5) to get into the dutch which will avoid a lot of the annoying sidelines like 2. Bg5, 2. Nc3 and the staunton.

Which one of these you should choose really depends on which dutch system you play against d4.

If you play the stonewall or classical then learning the french is a very reasonable thing to do. Not really because the positions you get will be similar, rather the type of game that arises from the french has some things in common with the dutch because of the closed nature of the positions arising. Another reason is ofcourse that it also gives you the option to play 1. d4 e6 to avoid sidelines.

If you play the leningrad then the pirc is definitely the way to go really because it can often lead to position similar to ones that happens in the leningrad and you can also use 1. d4 d6 to avoid sidelines.

I think Conzipe has some really sound advice for building a strong repertoire. For pure fun though, I'd throw out my vote for Alekhine's.

I like the Dutch myself. A personal favorite of mine is to play Dutch against e5 anyway. Which you can achieve by doing this:

This is practically the staunton gambit with d6. I started using this as an real attack opening. But it turned out that with good play from white it's actually pretty solid. It's called the Balgogh line of the Staunton Gambit. And there is actually more theory then you would think. http://sites.google.com/site/lurchingchess/balogh-main-line.

As a general rule of thumb you should never allow white to open up the center with e2-e4 in the dutch. The reason for this is because you have weakened some squares by playing f7-f5 when the position opens up those squares will start to become larger problems.

The best was for white to deal with line suggested above for example is simply to try and for black to play fxe4 when the position will open in whites favor and black will suffer because of hes weak lightsquares.

This absolutely true. I have found that the biggest advantage of this line is that opponents have never seen it before. It is a nice way to surprise opponents if your not feeling like playing an e4 opening that day. And with life chess I've actually had pretty good results I think.

I go 2.d4, get into the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and then get the Scandinavian players into trouble!

It is a pretty decent surprise weapon especially because the line is essentially unknown and white needs a proper understanding of the position to get an advantage against the defence.

There is a pretty good article about the defense here:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kaiss13.pdf

I used to play the Alekhine a lot in the past, with very good results and a lot of fun. In the end i dropped it because of the feeling that 1.e4 e5 was better for my chess development. But if only i could be as strong as you are, i would definitely return to my beloved 1...Nf6.

( ehm...a question for the english speakers in the discussion: does my last sentence make sense? It feels wrong...)

Bresando: it makes sense =)

Thanks 

Giving a second look to your repertoire, i guess that the alekhine should not meet your tastes. My personal interpretation of f4/f5 setups is "i like grabbing space even at the price of giving the opponent dangerous play" while 1...Nf6 is definitely "i like letting my opponent grabbing space for the sake of dangerous counterplay".

Maybe you should really consider the sicilian.

bestsI've tried lots of things against 1.e4:

• THE LATVIAN GAMBIT: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5?! is a very risky gambit. Once it has lost its surprise power, can be very dangerous to play with black against strong opponents. But I still play it sometimes, just for fun.
• THE CARO-KANN: 1.e4 c6 is just awesome. There are lots of things you can do, your pawn structure is solid and you don't have the problem of the French defense(blocking your c8 bishop).
• THE ALEKHINE: 1.e4 Nf6 is playable, but I didn't like how white could build a big center with his pawns.
• THE FRENCH: 1.e4 e6 is versatile, the Advance Variation (2.d4 d5 3.e5) is fun to play as black, but I don't like to trap my c8 bishop.
• THE FALKBEER COUNTERGAMBIT: 1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 is, for me, the best defense against my loved King's Gambit. It forces white to play very carefully as there are lots of traps to be aware of.
• THE SICILIAN: 1.e4 c5 is the opening with most theory behind (even 1.e4 c5 Ke2 has got a name and an ECO code), but it has got a lot of variations, according to your style. I'm now trying to go with the Dragon, but I don't think I'm going to get too deep into the Sicilian.

And there are other openings that I just don't feel comfortable using, like the Scandinavian (1...d5), the Owen defense (1...b6) or the Modern Defense(1...g6). Just pick what suits you best!