Anti-Fried Liver Defense? Why?

We don't worship Stockfish, but with an Elo of around 3300, we respect it.  

"...perfect game". It is the absolutly opposite! Black should play Nf3 instead of ...3h6. If white plays 4. Ng5 then black plays 4...d5 and problem solved. In your line, black is just giving white a free development move!

5. exd5, 5... Na5,  6. Bb5+, 6... c7, 7. dxc7  7... Nxc7. then problem solved.

 Nah, does not even have to play Na5

 after 5. exd5 5...Nxe5 6. Nxf7. this is the fried liver attack. sacrificing a knight to drag the king to the centre and either checkmate the king or win material.  

You should welcome poor move by your opponent, 3...h6 is just bad and doesn't contribute to helping black develop his pieces.

I think you missed Qh5 on multiple occasions 

Without deep analysis I would say moves 6, 9, 10 and 11 with varying degrees of effectiveness. 

Wondering if Stockfish 8 agrees that 2Q1C played a perfect game.  Actually, he darn near did.

Well said!

Even if you don't like gambits, you've got to like White after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 h6.

Stockfish 8 likes 4 d4, 4 O-O, 4 d3, and 4 Nc3, in that order, giving White a slight edge.  Since I never play 1...e5 as Black, I hadn't looked at the Fried Liver Attack in detail, but I sure welcome passive moves making up a defense. I played very Nimzowitsch-like prophylactic moves throughout the game, which got good ratings from the chess,com move analysis and great ones from Lucas Chess/Stockfish 8 analysis, which showed I dominated most of the game:

The CAPS score for each side was over 95% through the 27th move.

The only really bad move in the whole game was Black's 28th move (below).

My "blunder" was giving away the opposition with my 36th move, but I regained it.

Good points.  If I had it to do over I'd probably play 4 d4.  But 4. Nc3 is not a bad move in that, according to Stockfish, it maintained about a 1/4 pawn lead for White. And note that chess.com's CAPS rating had me around 93%-96% for most of the game. I had just gone through a few off-line games where I attacked too fast, didn't maintain any safety, and got burned. I decided on the Italian Game in order to see if I could make anything out of a game where I did less threatening but also left no weaknesses.

Stockfish is no genie, and certainly can make mistakes, some subtle and some larger. However, I think you are vastly underestimating stockfish. I think I can say with certainty that stockfish did in fact consider every question you posed. Remember that engines, unlike humans consider every move. That means stockfish consider the immediate c3, and saw the followup idea of Qb3. It also saw other ideas with the idea of keeping c3. It didn't forget any of these things, it just ultimately decided that the immediate Nc3 is stronger. I think the biggest misunderstanding you seem to have is that even if stockfish's idea is the wrong idea or a sub-optimal idea, it certainly played Nc3 with a concrete idea in mind, which is more than a lot of human players would have. It said "I will play Nc3 so that I can meet this with this and this with this and this with this etc.)" It didn't just say "a piece in the center is good." That's a human way of thinking, not an engine way of thinking. Engines think concretely and with good followup and plans to their moves.

Yes, I know. But the problem is solved; no mate! Thought is certainly unpleasant to have your king in the center, if you play OTB with standard time control, you will atleast get a draw. I defended this against a 2,1k OTB player, and would had drawed if I didn't make a blunder in move 40 

There was a time where I faced the Anti-Fried Liver Defense constantly.  I gather if I started playing Bc4 again I would see it constantly yet again.  I think the answer to your question is the obvious answer most people do not know how to handle the Fried Liver after exd5.  For some reason, most people do not think to play Na5.  Granted I myself was shown Na5 before I started playing it, but I wonder if I would have ever thought of that move on my own?  I don't know.  The problem is most people these days are spoon feed stuff.  They look up how to beat the Fried liver, and they see a video on the anti-fried liver defense and go with it.  The average chess player does not think for himself, but rather, allows himself to get spoon feed lines.  They just google it.  The ironic part about this is that all one has to do is google how to beat the Fried liver one more time and they will find the other line, but they do not seem to find it.  My guess is that often they do not even think to google the line they just start playing h6.  WGM Tatev Abrahamyan advises against this move in her easily accessible video on beginner openings, but I guess most people don't bother to even google, they just start playing h6.  They probably do not see anything wrong with h6 and do not feel the need to investigate further.  I know a lot of people that play pawn moves like this without thinking.  It's a sickness beginner's have.  It's coded in their chess DNA.  It's one of their ten commandments.  Thou shalt make unnecessary pawn moves.  To ask this original question one must also ask why do beginners make unnecessary pawn moves?  The answer quite simply is the following, BECAUSE THEY ARE BEGINNERS.    Eventually, they will see the line that is good to play against the Fried Liver, and then they will probably wonder why they are gambiting a pawn, and then do what all of us think is unthinkable, switch back to the anti-fried liver defense just because they do not want to lose a pawn!  Some will get the idea of moving the light-squared bishop in the way of the black light squared bishop after the instinctive check, however, little does the beginner know that this is inferior to the mainline, which is, the line most beginners who play the anti-fried liver either don't know about, or don't play simply because they do not want to gambit a pawn.

So, either the beginner just doesn't know, or incorrectly assesses that the anti-fried liver defense is superior to the Na5 line simply because it gambits a pawn.

Another reason might be this...  they are chess players.  And often, chess players make inferior moves, even in the picking of their opening repertoire.  I can't tell you how many games where I lost simply because my opponent surprised me due to a move that I thought was a fantastic novelty.  After each game I lost in those instances I realized that I could have won if I had just calmed down and rationally when through my list of candidate moves.  Often times I lose sight of the big picture when my king is attacked, or a powerful piece like a rook or a queen is attacked, and I fumble.  

The only answer to the problem is to make sure you are not spoon feed.  Work tactics daily and when you watch chess videos pause of the video when the maker of the video tells you to pause it, and work out the situation on your own first.  The only way to get better at chess is the learn to think for yourself.  Gain that muscle, and maybe you will be able to see a move like Na5 after exd5.

Lastly, I will say this.  I currently am a chess player of a particular group of people that play chess at a local Starbucks.  I am the second best player there.  Out of all of them, none of them, including the guy that is better than me, knows, about Na5.  That'll give you something to think about...!?!?!

I will also say this.  That computer assessment of the anti-fried liver, most beginners who play it, know about those sort of tricks already, and will not play into them...  Trust me I know.  I can't tell you how many times where I wanted them to play their bishop to defend their pawn after I offered up another pawn so I could pounce on them with the Bxf7+ motif.  It's true, you will only get 2 out of 10 players in that motif.  If all you want to do is prey on innocent beginners who do not know about that particular motif, then go for it, but please know that you will not get most people to succumb to your trickery who play the anti-fried liver, because, at least at my rating level, most have encountered that motif before and studied it.

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One of the ways you can tell if you are actually improving as a player is you don't have many games that end up in Fried Liver positions at all. While lots of fun, the FL is basically greasy kid stuff.

p.S. For the greasy Kids out there, that is not a slam. It is a reference to a very old commercial that if you are under about 40 or so have probably never heard of the phrase.

I think they play the anti fried liver defense because they want to prevent bishop pin on g5. But why play that before white even tries to develop the bishop I don't know. Anti fried liver defense just allows white to play c3-d4 at his leisure so I wouldn't care one way or another

The fact that 3...h6 (admittedly, not a particularly good move) frustrates you speaks to the move's viability from a psychological standpoint. I also like to open with the Italian Game as White. I absolutely agree with you that 3...h6 happens with inordinate frequency. I usually just play 4.d4 and continue with what I consider a Super-Scottish Opening. 

I frequently play 1...e5 as Black and nearly always play the Two Knights Defense, which practically begs White to play the Fried Liver with 4.Ng5. I know all those lines, though. I may play Traxler Attack or I sometimes will play the more common 4...d5. I'll even allow White to play the Classic Fried Liver Attack (with the knight sac on f2) because I also know how to weather that storm.

Yeah, I get it, 3...h6 seems like a the type of move that is played by a player who is petrified of White playing Ng5. Yet, I have to say, it is actually a perfectly playable move although, obviously, not the best. 

What is going unsaid in this thread is that the Fried Liver Attack is really only made possible if Black chooses to play the Two Knights Defense. That is actually a deceptively complex defense. It's no small matter that Black plays 3.Nf6 instead of 3.Bc5 in response to White playing an Italian opening. If Black plays a main line Italian (Giuoco Piano) by playing 3...Bc5, White's threat of Ng5 doesn't really exist. There is no Fried Liver Attack.