the funny thing is that at higher levels, natural aggressive moves like early bc4 in the philidor are borderline errors since you just give black more hooks in the position like b5 and d5 (or a target for a na6-nc5 hop if on b3)
Personally, the most promising line for white in the philidor at practical level is probably the early g3 lines, where white goes 0-0, and usually a4-b3 (and either bb2, or ba3) and coils the hell up. Whether black plays the exhange or the hanham , it is not easy to play as black. Agaisnt some lines like the exchange philidor, the bf4-qd2 0-0-0 line gives the highest eval but a master who studies the concrete lines can pretty much equalize you by move 28 with their prep. (how do i know? one course on the exchange philidor i bought has one line in this critical variation that was 31 moves deep XD)
the early g3 line exploits what is practically most challenging for a black player... someone even more patient than they are!
Why is Philidor Defense so popular?
If people are really that concerned about the Fried Liver, why don't they play the Hungarian Defense?
If you're so concerned about a fried liver for a 750 player (I wouldn't be) just advise the player to avoid the two knights variation. If white can remember to play a fried liver, black can remember to avoid it.
If they remembered how to avoid it they wouldn't be 750.
It's an argument inwhich you define yourself as correct - on one hand, white at 750 is proficient enough to remember. On the other hand, black at 750 certainly isn't. Bad argument, keep trying.
If black can't remember to avoid the two knights, they can't remember to play a philidor either. They're going to fall into the two knights regardless of what anyone tells them. May as well just encourage them in it.
If people are really that concerned about the Fried Liver, why don't they play the Hungarian Defense?
Another very good question.
i think you are misunderstanding though, im not telling you that patzers LEARN the philidor , its rather that patzers organically end up playing 2.d6 to avoid the headache of openings that follow from 2.nc6 after being burned trying to make it work for long enough.
they are not "Remembering" anything because they are not playing from opening book but winging it with at best general opening principles in mind. if there is any remembering , its extremely small, like remembering a couple of moves or pattern and thats it.
750 players arent saying to themselves, "im going to learn to play the antoshin philidor but prefer the early nc6 lines to early c6" . much more likely is "what the heck is a philidor? is that like when i file two rooks together? cuz i like that doing that" XD
this is what makes finally transitioning from organically winging it with 2.d6 into learning very baby philidor desirable. All you have to teach a 750 for the most part is, if they play 3.bc4, remember to play be7 first to avoid fried liver ng5 shenanigans, and if 3.d4, take the pawn then play natural, nf6, be7 0-0, re8 and possibly that bishop to f8 to open the rook makes sense and to consider c6 instead of nc6 all the time sometimes.
Its much harder to give an intuitive baby schema like this with 2.nc6 or the petroff
Oddly enough, the OP has played against 20 of these in the two years he's been on the site and I've seen 27 in 17 years. I'd suggest that the OP just look up the opening and see how to deal with it. Black tends to end up in crampy, difficult positions with not a lot of opportunity for active play.