I've been studying this particular opening as an alternative to my usual Sicilian. I think it leads to a very dynamic game. White has three main alternatives: 4.Nc3, 4.d3, 4.d4. Black usually plays 4...fxe4 unfazed with white's 4th move with the simple goal of opening the 'f' colunm which black plans to use to launch an attack on white's king. Any opinions?

Been playing it for a while, had some good wins, but also some bad losses. Anyway, it's fun.

These offbeat openings work better OTB than in CC or turn-based chess but coincidentally I used to play the Schliemann many yrs ago prior to the onset of online chess, with many interesting if not always successful results.  However since not everyone has access to lots of books and/or DBs and even if they do this defense is still semi-respectable so I may eventually try it again, esp since my results with the Berlin Defense were so miserable. Here a few links which may be of interest, many more can be found by using a search engine as I did. BTW are you near the giant radio telescope?

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1000992

http://chessmagnetschool.com/gambit/nytchess.php?mode=game&dataset=77&first=637    Carlsen could only draw as White!!

http://chess-openings-for-beginners.blogspot.com/2010/11/ruy-lopez-schliemann-defense.html

Thanks for sharing

I wouldn't call this "offbeat" at all, there are several strong GMs which are playing this with very good results(most notably GM Radjabov, currently n°5 on the live rating list, plays it regularly). It's a completely sound variation, and in good theoretical shape at the moment.

Personally i don't like it because black play is rarely gambit-like. In all the challenging variations after Nc3 white is the one attacking(and often sacrificing material) and black task is to defend accurately and avoid the pitfalls for many moves. In general black often finds himself behind in development and white has strong practical chances. But there is no denying that with careful study 3...f5 is playable and strong. 

Thank you all for your help. @ajedrecito I'll be sure to pick up that book, I've heard it attained good reviews.

Since rooperi was nice enough to show us a game I'll show a miniture of my own:

breasando thanks for updating my somewhat rusty appraisal! Here's what the DB here indicates, it's the third most popular reply to the RL at least here

By the way if you want to look at some recent and succesfull super-GM games, the variation was played 4 times at the last Bazna kings tournament (with black scoring a respectable +1 =3 -0, and black was always ok out of the opening according to the GM commentary), by Radjabov during the last European club cup (winning as black against the 2700+ Adams for example) and by Aronian against Anand in Bilbao (0-1).

And there is also an upcoming chess.com thematic tournament on this variation (i'm already subscrived in the 1800-2000 section) so you might use it to practice the opening.  :) as i said i'm not a fan of the positions black often get is this variation, but theoretically it looks like he is completely fine right now.

i recognize you.  :D

breasando thanks again but 10 games is too many for me to add to my gameload right now! I'm going to keep the Schliemann in mind however although I am now trying to play and learn Petroff's Defense and as a bonus am running into many KGs which is one of the few gambits I don't mind defending against. Good luck in the tnmt! 

I've been enjoying playing the Schliemann too. It immediately sets up a direct tactical confrontation and a nicely imbalanced game.

I just fnished up this game a couple of weeks back. White caught me offguard quite early on... but the Schliemann proved to be quite resilient!