Is the Parham more than a glorified scholar's mate attempt?

Sure, I completely agree with this. Shock value is very valuable in blitz. However, I'm not sure the best moves are too hard to find.

To be fair, sometimes sacrificing your queen for absolutely nothing is good in blitz or bullet when your opponent has 2 seconds left.

However, I also think that it is fine to use in standard play, if you so choose. This is what gets people ticked off, because they assume it can't be good if it brings out the queen that early.

Post #5: James woods, what you mention is not completely pointless, but I think you are getting a bit too interested in the micro details of the position -- features so small that even super GMs would not get excited over them. Maybe 30 moves later black will find it more convenient for the f6 square to have more defense, but nonetheless, I think both sides will have much greater concerns and the only way the ...g6 move would seriously become a problem is if black allowed it to be that way with inferior play.

Anyway, black has no kill or anything. You could certainly get away with this as white, but the way I view it, even though the early queen isn't the worst thing in the world, why allow my opponent a good development for nothing? I think it just makes the work slightly harder for white. I'm fine with working hard when I have to, but I don't create work unnecessarily.

But, if you don't mind the unnecessary work, well, knock yourself out I guess. Of course there is surprise value, but to me it looks like black really can just follow opening principles and have good chances of an equal game or better.

By the way, a bishop on g7 is by no means bad here. In fact, grandmasters occasionally fianchetto their king bishops voluntarily in some of these e4 openings when they're in the mood. It looks crazy to fianchetto into a pawn on e5, but the point is that, since the center is where both sides can get the most play, it makes sense to prepare for a conflict there. If ...d5 gets played, it'll be useful for the e5 pawn to be protected. If white plays d4 or f4, here as well the g7 bishop has potential to open up. In fact, in order for white to keep the bishop locked forever, he'd basically have to give up those two desirable pawn breaks! Moreover, black's king has excellent protection provided the g7 bishop stays there (which it often does as it influences the game well at its home on g7), which means that pushing pawns on the kingside, to gain space, will generally be less risky for black.

Also in contrast to, say, a bishop on c5, the bishop on g7 is less subject to harassment. A lot of times white can try to win the bishop pair with Nc3-a4, hitting the bishop on c5. Black can either allow this to happen, or play ...a6 or something and stick the bishop on a7. It controls a fairly useful diagonal there, but doesn't have a lot of flexibility to switch to diagonals, so black better hope that a7-g1 diagonal doesn't lose importance! On g7, the bishop has all the privacy he could ask for.

Of course normally playing ...g6 wastes some time, but here black got the move for free so the fianchetto deployment isn't so slow after all.

I don't know, I do know about this dubious opening though:

So the answer to my question, is no.

Find an improvement on 15. Kb1 then. It is the best (and only) move in that position.

Also, if you cannot find an improvement anywhere, going to great depth shows just how great of an advantage black can gain.

If you call playing accurately Nc6, g6, Nf6, Bg7, 0-0 - all natural developing moves.

Instead, white has to play accurately or they end up much worse.

And in my line black is winning because white makes two minor inaccuracies - g4 and Bg5, which were both given by the parham players in response to lines I gave where black equalized and maybe even gained a slight advantage. Nevertheless, this shows how difficult the line is to play for white.

if i recall correctly, black is close to lost already in that position.