Never Play f6

This is a public service announcement. I know this is a meme by now, but seriously, never play f6 as black unless you're absolutely sure you know what you're doing. Just don't do it. Take that cursor and put it over something else.

I just had this happen today and unbelievably, the person had a four-digit rating. Don't let this happen to you.

sure...........as it turns out, by Black pushing their pawn to f6, it opened up a diagonal to their King.   So on move 2, standard is either capture the "f" pawn or defend your "e" pawn with .......d6.    Pushing your Center "d" pawn contests the Center and also opens up a diagonal for your Bishop to eentually come out.

Thanks for the advice.  What site were you on? I couldn't see any live games today.

All I could see in your profile was 13 move-for-move repeated 36-move beatings of the Alexandra-bot that followed 17 84-move beatings of the same bot. (I didn't actually check if they were move for move repeats but 4 of them had the exact same accuracy scores.)

/ What were you trying to do/prove? 

Lmao everyone is entitled to a guilty pleasure but that sure is funny I am actually very curious myself what she was trying to accomplish/achieve as well... I didn't even know bots would always play the same moves... 

As far as the f6 move... it is very common in a lot of openings such as the french, but in a e4 e5 opening it's already quite bad, against the KG it's straight up losing, nevertheless nice job on punishing with the thematic qh5+

@justbefair - I don't generally play here. I like the bots because you can practice theory and ideas on them on various levels but mostly I play on another site.

@Morfizera - it's a bug in chesscom. If you analyze a game against a bot and then go to a different page, then go back to it, it will sometimes register it twice or as many times as you back up. Also, they are all wins because I just abandon games where I just blunder and mess up.

Also, yes, there are some openings where f3 or f6 (which, for beginners, is the white version of f6) is theory (some lines of the French or Sicilian, or the Fantasy variation of the Caro Kann come to mind), and there are some positions where it's the best or even only move, but this is a beginner forum and I just wanted to post an example of why you never play f3/f6 willy-nilly. You just gotta make absolutely sure that it's okay. In general, just move something else!!!

Ben Feingold says NEVER play F3 as white he means never lol. So on the opposite side yes F6 unless you are planning on long castle but have that plan in advance

On move 2, black can play Bc5, d6, Nc6, or d5;  or they can accept the gambit and play d6, g5, or Nf6 on move 3 and still have a good position. These are all mainstream line but there are also some sidelines that are still viable. All of those are theory and all are fine for black. That's why I play the King's Gambit. Every game is fun and different, even though it's hard.

What black absolutely cannot do is play f6.

That is why I always tell to novice players that they should imagine as if the f pawn is nailed shut to the board in the opening.

@NikkiLikeChikki fair enough!

And yes if we include f3 then it opens a lot of possibilities... fantasy is fun, and even cooler is the saemisch against KID if you decide to go for d4.. yugoslav attack and english attack also comes to mind.. i just mentioned the possibility of in certain positions f6 being playable because sometimes people hear "never play f6" and they will actually blindly and dogmatically follow it and not play f6 even if it's the only way to avoid checkmate

Also, against KG 2...d5 is forced.... if you're passing on the possibility of playing a gambit with the name "beer" in it then what are you really doing with your life

I never think of beer when I think of the Falkbeer Countergambit. To me, Falkbeer sounds like some minor deity living on Asgard in a Thor movie. If you want to make him the God of Beer, I'm okay with that.

I still don't think it's okay to tell a beginner that it's sometimes okay to play f6. I'd word it something like "once in a while you'll find that you *have* to push the panic button and play f6 because if you don't you'll lose. No beginner is going to be playing the French and getting into a position where they go for the f3 pawn break to gain space, gain a pawn majority in the center, and sometimes allow for other pieces to come to the defense of the king. But again, beginner's forum.

That's one way to phrase it... My brain is wired weirdly and maybe it's just because I have a problem with "ultimatums" or "absolute truths" or however you wanna call it but words such as "always", "never" etc tend to annoy me when they don't actually mean always or never... but you're right beginner's forum

And I don't care, as long as there's beer involved

It is of course just the advice for someone who is starting out, until he can better understand the consequences of that move.

Just like sometimes there will be Nh3 move in some concrete opening to maneuver that knight elsewhere, even though there is the advice "Knights on the rim are dim".

Which part of beginners forum did people not get the memo on? I know lines of the Alekhine where f6 is theory. Gina! No beginner is going to play the Gligoric except by accident! Dubov and Paravyan are both over 2600! Stop! I'm talking to people who might be tempted to play f6 against the King's Gambit on move two!

In that case

Shockingly, the Damiano has been played almost 100,000 times on that other web site. Guess who wins the vast majority of games. What's even more shocking is that it's been played 5 times in the Master database. That it's not zero is mind-blowing. Guess which side won all of those games. Dare you.

You think it was touch-rule or a mouse slip? I can't imagine anyone with a title playing the Damiano on purpose except maybe for the memes.

Yes, but no beginner that plays f6 wants to go Qe7 after knight takes (unless he learned it and wants to somehow surprise someone, in which case this is not for them) , I was just trying to show how to punish damiano, that's why I didn't even cover best defense 6...d5 with the bishop sac on b7 because I thought it would be too much

Tough question lol did they play 3...fxe5 or 3...Qe7 ?

In the master database:

3. Nxd4 Qe4 - 3 times

3. Nxd4 fxe5 - 1 time

3. d4 d6 - 1 time

Times black won? Zero.

So you are saying they are all the same length because of a chess.com glitch and not because you played the exact same moves 13 times (in the 36 move games) or 17 times (in the 84 move games)?