Top,

I fed the game to Fritz for analysis, and had all the errors pointed out to me, which was of course very useful, but the first 5 and a half moves (if I remember correctly - don't have it to hand now) were said to be book moves; hence my general query into the line. I also know that playing my King to g8 was pretty awful. 

We played 1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nxf7 Kxf7 5. Bc4+ d5 6. exd5 Qe7+ 7.Be2.....

I am not sure the sequelae would assist in the discussion, save to demonstrate our proclivity towards the wrong moves, but am happy to oblige for what it may be worth. How do I post the Fritz analysis?

Frankly, stats in and of themselves mean nothing. 

The stats must be analyzed properly to determine their true value. 

If favorable stats were the end all then Fischer, Kasparov and Anand would have and would be playing the Blackmar Diemer Gambit.
 
Somehow I do not think that discussing the Pro's and Con's of sacking a piece for a mobile pawn centre will help you. Once again if you want useful help post the game.

Topster

Well, Alumbrado, I hear what you are saying, but the sac performs really well statistically. That was what surprised and intrigued me. Chesslab.com has 60% White wins for the 1485-1990 period and 52% White wins for the 1991+ period, whereas chessgames.com's opening explorer has 61.5% (of 65 games only).

This, in anybody's language, is good stats. Better than the KG any day. And, given the sharpness of the move, the wins and losses will be more a function of the opening than in other cases (for example, the apparently poor recent results for Black with playing d5 against the early Nc3 did not seem to me, on looking at some of the games, to be attributable to the opening in many cases).

Because there are so many games where this variation is played, I cannot make my own assessment of the reasons for the White or Black wins after the sac.

Furthermore, a chap who is going to go Nxf7 is surely gonna have looked at these lines a bit before he does something like that. The few games I have managed to follow up to see a pattern seem to suggest that Black does okay if he quickly gets his pieces out from behind the King, particularly if he castles artificially; in some of the Black wins Black found it necessary or useful even to give back a piece to open White up too.

Photophore, since I do not like playing back to f6 with the knight, I would prefer not to go down that route.

Alumbrado - how do you play it? Say after Bc4+ etc.

@Franklz:

I havent bought the book yet. But to my knowledge the book doesnt deal with 4.Nxf7

As it is not played so often there might still be a need for indepentend analysis. Do you have allready feed Fritz with the Topolov-Kramnik 1999 game?

II think if a Wihte player chooses this line he could be inspirted by this game. He might have even feed fritz with it and has some where a deviation.

So my advice to you is do the same. If you can finde an deviation from this game with some nice tactical trapps, you might have a good weapon against the most player.

Quite 'Frankly', post the game and then we would be better able to help you.  

Tops

Postscript: Ohh wait a minute, this is a thread about beating the petroff not saving it, so this could present a conflict.  

"that probably suits him much less ( since it's less frequent as closed defence , it's not likely to suppose he awaited it"
"At worst , he may accept to lose some games"
This is questionable.

It is gambling, because the whole argument is based on questionable assumptions.

Quote:

Yes it often is like gambling like with poker or blackjack. The way you play (moving quick, looking confident, choosing dull or entirely open positions) is often as important as the moves themselves, especially when you're about equal strength. So it is entirely justified to play a variation you think your opponent will not like. Even if that is not the case you will be more confident behind the board, then if you think he likes or knows the variation, so you will probably play better moves. Just look at what Fischer did to Spassky, almost every game he played something different, which made Spassky insecure during the game as he had to guess what Fischer had prepared.

That being said the Nc3 variation is probably not my cup of tea.