3 Knights... I hate this

Apart from Nf6, what's good for Black here, to blow some life into the position. I always get the feeling White is trying to bore me to death

...Bb4 is the standard Three Knights Defence. ...f5 is dubious. ...g6 doesn't appeal to me. I'm not a 1...e5 player though, gave it up years ago.

Yea, I hate these kind o positions too. So boring...

Yeah...agreed

yawn...zzz 

4.g3 Nxe4 is possible, at least. Although I doubt anyone has ventured it in a tournament.

I never play e5, so I never get into the position, the minute it even looks like symetry, I'll be the one heading for deep water fast.

3.g6 is a good move and is well covered in dangerous weapons e4 e5

It's not so boring as one might think! I tend to use it on the line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4, when I have my preferred variation of the Scotch (with ice).

I wouldn't look away from 3... Nf6 just yet. After 3... Nf6 4. Bb5 you can opt for 4... Nd4 "The Rubinstein variation" which can lead to come pretty crazy games. White's other option after 3... Nf6 is 4. d4 which leads to a more positional game- luckily black is given active play in exchange for a slightly compromised pawn structure. The line goes: 3... Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4 Bb4 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Bd3 d5 8. exd5 cxd5 where black has more pawn island yes, but also more space and the same if not more activity than white. 

if you choose 3.g6 you save yourself alot of theori because you also get a free defence against the scotch

here is a fun game!

A lot of those exclam'd moves are only moves or obvious moves.

I second the Rubinstein variation after Bb4, especially after reading the article on it on chess.com (Openings for tactical players).

dont listen to this guy. its grandmaster john emms who have put the exclams and the moves are deeper than cbgirardo understand. emms is a very tactical player who advice this line for in his own words "liveling up the three knights and the scotch" there is alot of annotations to the game but i removed it because it wouldnt be legal of me to rip it off the book dangerous weapons e4 e5 like that. and the guy losing in 17 moves in the game is an IM V.Slovineanu

or play the sicilian or the modern

thats not how it works. and exclam is used to show that a move is good. for example the only reason blacks 9...d5 works is because 13...Qxd5 allowing the knightfork works in that spesific situation or else 9...d5 would have been horrible. i find that pretty impressive preparation and if that doesnt deserve an ecxlam then what does? im not gonna spoil more annotation because i dont think it would been legal since its a bought product.

do you really feel its obvious to play 9...d5 preparing to allow the knightfork on c7 at move 14? because if you dont play Qxd5 you just lose because 9...d5 is usually a mistake in those positions.

It's been played several times in regular tournaments.  Josh Friedel played it a couple of times. Macieja was brave enough to play it against Ilya Smirin, a former 2700+ FIDE player, and was rewarded with a 24 move draw.

I was one of Josh Friedel's victims in this line (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.g3 Nxe4) in what was basically a miniature in the 2nd round of the 2004 US Open.  Back then, having never seen it, I figured it had to be trash.  Now, being stronger than I was back then, I believe it's interesting, but not sound enough to use on a regular basis against the same opponents.  It has shock value, and will work once or twice against each opponent you play, but ultimately, I still don't find it 100% sound, but White really must know what he's doing.  I put 4.g3 Nxe4 in the same class of openings, from a soundness perspective, as that of the Latvian Gambit.  It's not refuted, but it's still not very good.