Philidor's Defense: Theoretical Exchange Sacrifice! (Instructive Annotated Game)

I recently played a very interesting 10 minute game against a player playing the Philidor's Defense.

Anyways, a while back I had prepared a really interesting line against the Philidor's Defense (actually, it was GM Igor Smirnov's line, but I went a little further and found something pretty cool) - it involved very active development for white, and an attempt to directly attack the black king out of the opening using an exchange sacrifice --- if black played accurately, black would certainly equalize in this line, but there would still be a tough game, with white having a good amount of pressure. 

I've played against the Philidor many times, and quite a few times players have played into my preparation, but they've all deviated from the rook sacrifice line! This is the first time a player's actually gone into this line against me. 

It was quite an interesting game - flawed on both sides, as I, according to the engine, had several chances to get an advantage, but missed it, and my opponent blundered several times too. It's just that type of game though... Here's the game, without too many variations!

Lol wasn't expecting too many comments... very theoretical, cryptic game. 

Wow, good game. I do have to add that these types of positions are what separates man from machine lol. many options, many squares. Impressed you played fairly accurately.

Actually - I'd say that it's tough to play this position as black - white is the one attacking, and has many different ways to make decent moves. For instance, even though there were inaccurate moves on my part, these were all still "ok" - not totally losing or something. 

Black has to defend against the threats carefully - very often he had only one good move to play, and he finally ended up making one that I was able to take advantage. 

After I won the queen, there were probably 10 moves/turn that I could've played that would be about equal - it was very easy play. 

Good game. Black could have resigned onmove 47.

I find that a lot of Philidor players, as black, play the exact same way black played in the game above! So you might actually be able to play the e5 sacrifice pretty often!

Nice opening. I usually play the "normal" lines with Nxd4. I have been considering changing to Qxd4, your game just reminded me of that.

This line is probably the closest thing to a "grandmaster's opening preparation" that I've ever played.. 18 moves of theory.

Very nice preparation and an interesting dynamic long term initiative. Good game

Great game! I don't like this position for Black anymore. Apart from the crazy tactics in this game White can even consider just killing the game with 5...Be7 6.e5 if he wants. 5...a6 is ok I guess but it's just slow even if White castles long. Black has no fun here.

Lol thanks everyone! I switched to this variation after I didn't like the Nxd4 lines, since black seemed to always know what he/she was doing.

By playing Qxd4, I basically gain massively quick development and activity at the cost of a bishop pair, and can better force positions that I want to play. 

The downside is that the endgame can be slightly worse for white, due to the bishop pair, if black neutralizes the white activity. 

Thanks! 

(No advertising other "chess sites", but the opening preparation for this is in GM Smirnov's "GM's opening preparation" chess course, which I found very useful).