Any Alekhine's experts out there??

Today I was demolished by a FIDE2457 IM in a FIDE rated OTB game, in an extremely offbeat line in the Alekhine defence: 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.b3!?  

I replied 3...g6 with the idea of using the opening of the long diagonal to benefit my dark squared bishop, but both the line actually played (3.g3) and 3.Qf3!? seem to set black with plenty of problems.

I know the Alekhine well, having read a few books on it, and having played it for years, but never before have I seen 3.b3!?.

Any suggestions on how black should go about refuting White's plan?

I think that 3.b3 has the idea of supporting his center with piece play. The e5 pawn will be supported by Bb2, Nf3 and d4 and as such the typical plans of destroying whit's center will be much less impactful since his pieces will already be well placed.

Especially, fianchettoing your bishop on g7 will first bite on a pawn that will be very well supported and 2nd, in most lines you will castle on the kingside and your defensive bishop will be contested by white's own bishop on b2. I'm far from an expert in the Alekhine because I'm quite low rated, even though this defense is my main weapon against e4, and take my following thoughts witha  great deal of criticism:

What white fails to achieve here is to chase the Nd5 knight who is very well placed. If he contests it with Nc3 we can either trade it, or support it with e6 or c6. e6 I think is more sensible because we know we don't want our dark-squared bishop on the long diagonal(from my previous opinions). White also hasn't fought very actively for the center, and it would seem quite logical to play 3...c5, with the plan to meet d4 with cxd4 and removing one of whit's best supporter of the e5 pawn. 3...c5 also frees the c7 (and c6 somewhat) squares for developping purposes. If white wants to ensure to have a pawn on d4, he has to play c3 then d4 which is a lot of tempis considering he already "wasted" one on b3.

My main plan to seek activity would be to paly with c5 to claim some space for myself, having e6 thrown in somewhere to support my knight and getting room to activate my bishop, and aiming at fianchettoing by lightsquared bishop to try and fight for the d5 and e4 squares which were weakened by white's e4-e5 advance. This would have us fighting for d4, d5 and e4 in the center while activating our pieces.

My typical setup would go c5, b6, Bb7, e6 Be7 0-0, of course staying as flexible as possible since white's setup is quite flexible as well.

Can you post the whole game? I have to admit I'm very interested.

Feel free to disagree with me, I'm still a patzer, I propose my thoughts as an entry point for discussion, not as a general truth.

A quick look in a database shows that 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.b3 c5 4.Bb2 g6 has been played and seems totally okay for black. It seems that 5.e6?! f6! and white has nothing. And his best try seems to be 5.g3. The position might retain an advantage for white, but this kind of "not so fast" play is typical of what I like to face as Black when I play the Alekhine, and I think black has enough space and dynamic potential to have a playable game, most notably with a timely ...d5 (tactics with the pin/unpin on the e5 pawn between the bishop doesn't seem to favor white with a quick look).

A quick look at the games played with the setup I had in mind (1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.b3 c5 4.Bb2 e6 5.Nf3 Be7) seems to score really well for black. This position has not been reached a huge number of times, but the results are well in favor of black. I just don't see how white can significantly improve, when Black can still get his bishop on the long diagonal, eventually rerouting the Nd5 knight to g6 to add pressure on e5,and either continue adding pressure with Nc6 Qc7 and d6 or play for central space with d5 after having moved the knight. I would be really happy to play black there.

In my opinion, if white wants to give black an uncomfortable game he has to come with something else than 4.Bb2.

Yes , I know a Guy Who plays it Exclusively

Thanks and merci beaucoup for your thoughts.  I have to prepare for my next game in 75 minutes' time so I don't have the time to post the game right now, but I will do so at the end of the day.

I'm only rated FIDE1794, although my opening play is probably closer to a 2300 level, and I have been 2000+ in the past.  It's highly unusual for me to get a clearly worse position out of the opening.  I had a quick look at some databases, but unfortunately, the players on the white side were never  the same standard of IM James Morris (my opponent).

Our game lasted about 3 hours, and we spent at least another 90 mins analysing afterwards, and he showed me a number of finesses that all seemed to leave white with a slight, but persistent advantage.

I understand that it would be extremely tedious to list these finesses, but I am extremely interested in all this. As I told, Alekhine is my main defense and I don't plan on changing anytime oon given the high diversity of games that are allways very rich. If you could point out at least a few it would really be awesome.

On chesstempo, with 2500+ vs 2500+ setting, there are 15 games going 1.e5 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.b3 and all continued 3....c5

Edit: and the conclusions from the "quick look" at the scores in my previous post don't seem to hold that well with these 15 games.

You were not demolished by the opening but because he is 2457.

It would be interesting to see how the b3 line game went. Given that white might have to make some concessions to keep the b2 Bishop from hanging versus ...g6 ...Bg7 and that Bb2 doesn't help and might hinder White's often qside push.

Is the B really much better on b2 versus a maybe more typical placement on the center kside?

@pfren: May I ask you to elaborate a bit on the reasons why you think black might even be better after 4.g3 d6 ?

I am guessing whites starategy is to go for some form of kings indian attack by oversupporting the e pawn. just develop normally and look for some queenside play

I just remembered my rating isn't high enough to even be taken seriously on the forums so why bother writing my opinion?

Maybe cause people can debate with you the topic? Making you both learn?

All opinions are important. But feel free to never talk.