How to play againest the fried liver as black?

the fried liver proper hasnt been in master play for a long time, but Ng5 definitely has always been played.

Interesting. I thought the Fried Liver didn't sacrifice the knight, ideally.

The knight sacrifice is the Fried liver. All other variations are not the Fried liver.

Is there a name for it when the knight is not meant to be sacrificed?

The Knight attack. The names change depending on blacks next responce.

The other good move is 6. d4, it's the Lolli Attack, named after

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Lolli

This is the attack that I've done when the Fried Liver, Knight Attack is attempted. I don't know what it would be called officially. On Lichess they called it the C57 Italian Game: Two Knights Defense, Fritz Variation, which is the same for Chess.com.

i believe that 6.c3 b5 7.Bf1 gives white an advantage. Tell me if im wrong, but i believe that its the reason why this isnt played

Hi!

You don't have to. Just play 3...Be7 and you would avoid to study the theory of 3...Nf6 4. Ng5

Now, if you don't mind studying, then play 4...d5, 5. ed5, and why not to surprise your opponents with 5...b5!? 6 Bf1 (best move!) Nd5 7. Bb5, Bb7

Good luck!

Na5 is probably the best move.

But I like to move my pawn to b5. Works well (at my elo, i'm 1100). It really surprise my opponent and it's easy for them to make a mistake in the next moves.

Best response to b5 is moving back their bishop f3, but no player around 1000 elo will play this move since it's really counter intuitive.

What about the traxler counterattack with Bc5

There can be many traps if white takes f7 with knight and you sacrifice the bishop on f2.

Traxler is not a good reply to fried liver as it gives white the advantage and at a higher level white would probably win against the traxler

This can be easily countered by playing c3 on move 6

h6 is the quickest way to stop the Fried Liver attack when played before the knight gets to G5. If you play the Modern defense or plan to castle that side, you will not be down a tempo because most of the time that move will be played anyways. If the person insists on putting the knight on G5, the person just loses a knight from your pawn capture.

h6 is a very passive defense

...h6 is silly. It doesn't develop a piece and it doesn't stop White from just playing d2-d4 and being up effectively a whole tempo.

That ...Nd4 move (instead of the main ...Na5 line) is extremely interesting. It leads to a position where the queens come off almost by force (if both sides play the best moves after 6 c3 b5 7 Bf1 Nxd5 cxd4 Qg5 Bxb5+ Kd8 0-0 Bb7) and White ends up up a pawn temporarily, but can't seem to hold onto it, but in return, Black's King ends up awkwardly placed on d8. The problem is, Black has to study TWO lines if he plays ...Nd4. 6 c3 b5 7 Bf1 Nxd5 *and* the second best line: 6 d6(?!) Qxd6 7 d3 (best. 7 Bxf7+ Ke7 8 Bb3 Nxb3 9 axb3 h6 10 Nf3 e4 followed by 11 ...Bg4 is not what White is looking for, even though the evaluation is like +0.07.) 7...Nd5 8 Nc3 c6 9 0-0 Be7, with equality. Better to just study the main ...Na5 line, and make sure you study the rook sacrifice on a8 if White tries to play Qf3. This is a lot less work.

Also several strong GM's have played the Fried liver attack, although I don't know if it was a quick or slow time control or not. A bunch of 2600 and at least one 2700 rated GM has played it, and not too long ago. I think the strongest player to play it as White was Alexei Shirov. And a bunch of 2600 and 2500 rated GM's have had the black side, perhaps the best well known person being Gata Kamsky.

@40

Yes. Here is an ICCF correspondence game with it where black won.