On Opening books in 2015

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Any clue how black equalises here, as I really can not see?
All I see is very big white advantage, just as Fischer thought.
For reference, you might also want to look at this exemplary Fischer game:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6
7.dxc6 bxc6 8.Be2 h6 9.Nh3 Bc5

ok well i have 9...Nb7! in my book, checked it with the Chessbase
livebook, it there is followed by 10.d3 with only 50 pct score.
Also 9...Bd6 might be ok, it appears with preliminary SF
analysis, but then 10.d4 is scoring 60 pct with the live-book..
So without going to analyse it all i prefer 9...Nb7!

And because 9...Nb7! = is good enough for me (for Black)
after 9.Be2, I have 9.Bd3 instead of 9.Be2 in my book, and
then you can get quite some complicated lines. Not going
to show them all to you, but like above if you have a
question about a specific move i can answer.

NB from this 'live book' it's not directly apparent how
to obtain such a slight advantage for White, it again requires
careful analysis, and backsolving, to obtain such a result..
But it ( aslight advantage) makes sense though, here is the
complicated and rather double-edged end-position (move 23):

r1b5/p4kpp/3n1b2/q1p3p1/8/BP1P4/P2P1PPP/1RQ1R1K1 b - - 1 1

best regards from a 'veterate' theoretician; although i
don't get a heart attack from such lines, though


jef

Would not like to depreciate in any way theoretical investigation, but: those percentages basically mean nothing. They are not filtered by strength categories, and that is the most important point.

If you give me 50% score for 9...Nb7 in the category of players above 2700 elo, then, well, really, they will mean something to me; but like that do not impress me much.

Second point is that, if you have a good score for a position/move, it might be due to psychological, and not fully objective considerations: for example, defending positions is usually more unwelcome, and even if the position is objectively good, that might still yield bad percentage results.

Or, in the case of the Sicilian, the player choosing c5, the Sicilian, is certainly bound to be better prepared than the player playing e4 on the first move, as e4 could also lead to a multitude of other openings than the Sicilian, so the white player may usually be less prepared for c5.

Concerning the Two knights Defence, logically, Nf6 is not a good move after Bc4, as, although Bc4 makes small concession to the best possible move, Bb5, maybe some 7cps, Nf6 is a much bigger concession to the best black reply, Bc5, worth much more centipawns, as this allows white to directly attack f7, and thus, to the already existing white advantage of the first move, some 15cps, is added another advantage of maybe some 10cps after Nf6, so black is almost on the brink of losing, and any further inaccuracy might be fatal.

So that I think the Two Knights Defence is simply weak for black, and do not believe Nb7 provides black with equality (nothing personal).

Of course, I do not have the time to analyse this extensively, but it simply does not make sense.

[jdart]

Fischer was a great player, but theory has moved on since his day.

The real proof for me that this is not in any way "won" for White is that it is still played in correspondence and most correspondence games end in draws.

--Jon

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Fischer was a great player, but theory has moved on since his day.

The real proof for me that this is not in any way "won" for White is that it is still played in correspondence and most correspondence games end in draws.

--Jon

Gosh, Jon.

Fischer is theory.
Carlsen is theory.
Fischer and Carlsen are theory, whatever they play is theory.

Those correspondence games, no matter how long they last, do use engines to help the players choose the moves, and those engines, as evident, do not have a clue about opening theory!

Nothing surprising then most games end in a draw. Why not, if the engines see it like that?

I even do not know what organization ICCF is, but, it should have suspended its existence the day powerful computers appeared.

[zullil]

That is why, with perfect play, e4 should be better than d4

Surely with perfect play these are exactly equal in value. Both lead to the same outcome, right? Almost surely a draw.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

That is why, with perfect play, e4 should be better than d4

Surely with perfect play these are exactly equal in value. Both lead to the same outcome, right? Almost surely a draw.

Not quite.

On e4, black simply does not have a line that equalises fully, some Sicilian lines give fair chances, but are few and far between.

Petrov does not equalise, mainstream Caro-Kann also not, the Ruy Lopez gives white steady advantage, Philidor is a pain, etc.

On d4, most lines favour white, for example, the Queen's Indian Defence, whatever engines might think, most lines of the QGD and QGA, most lines of the Slav, the Nimzo-Indian is also bad for black, etc.
But, a single opening holds perfectly, providing full equality: the KID.

That is why, e4 is better with perfect play, while d4 scores better in a wider range of openings, but not with perfect play.

Fischer and Kasparov were no fools, and also Carlsen, they all like finachhetoeing their king bishops, whether with white or black, and the first 2 players had the KID as a staple of their opening repertoire.

Both Fischer and Kasparov preferred e4, and those are the 2 strongest players in history until the appearance of Carlsen.

[Uri Blass]

I disagree with lyudmil and I think that at least in 99% of the cases engines play the right move if you give them a long time to calculate.

if there are some cases when they do mistakes you can find it by the evaluation and if white play the right move based on long analysis in every move but black get the advantage after move 15 or move 20(at least 0.1 pawns for black) then it is better to do analysis to see where white went wrong in order to fix the book.

Starting point if we build a book for white is simply play the moves the engines suggest after a long analysis for white and moves that are in the database for black.

Same idea if we build an opening book for black but in the last case I suggest to try to fix only cases when the evaluation for white is at least 0.5 pawn for white because small advantage for white does not mean that black did a mistake.

That seems wrong. Engines' PV in a position, especially in the openings, are useless after 2-3 displayed half-moves. Even identical engines will play the expected reply only 70%-80% of the time, the next in PV 50%-60%, and so on decreasing. Engines have only a very fragmented outlook of the game, changing randomly "plans" and PV lines. Books need a trustworthy PV of 20 or so half-moves, a thing engines don't give.

The books are not built by leaving long analyzes of openings. Most lines are chosen by outcome statistics. Most games used are fast, for example PlayChess 1' and 3' per game.

I did not say to trust engine pv's except the first half move.
The idea is to analyze every position and pick the first move in the pv.

[Uri Blass]

Another funny thing is: you test your engine's performance and improvement with long books, say 8,10,15 moves-long or even longer.

All the relevant search and eval parameters, but also the time management, are tuned to perform well after move 8 or 15. Not before that.

This is simply not correct and the tests in the stockfish framework are usually with a short book.
The tests are only at bullet and super bullet(15 seconds per game or 60 seconds per game) so you can claim that the test is not tuned for long time control but the facts are that stockfish get better also at longer time control.

[Uri Blass]

Another funny thing is: you test your engine's performance and improvement with long books, say 8,10,15 moves-long or even longer.

All the relevant search and eval parameters, but also the time management, are tuned to perform well after move 8 or 15. Not before that.

So how would you expect an engine, whose search and eval is tuned to statistically perform well starting late into the opening, to also perform well early into the opening, on move 3,5,6? The specific chess conditions early in the opening and in late opening are not quite the same, so an engine could play well into the early opening and find good moves, only if it has tuned its search and eval parameters with very short, 2-5 moves book, preferably shorter, for years.

How many engines out there have tuned their parameters with a very short book for years? I am afraid none.

So, when SF says d4 is the best move, I strongly doubt it, as there are much better chances it is c4 or e4.

Same from the black side: if SF suggests the French is a good option on e4, I strongly disbelieve that, as Sf has never tuned its parameters to perform well starting from the very first move.

A lot of strong GM's practically play 1.d4 so I wonder why do you think that you know better than them.

Stockfish also say that 1...c5 is the best move against 1.e4 and not 1...e6

http://database.chessbase.com/js/apps/database/

The analysis that suggest 1...e6 is at depth 48 when the analysis that suggest 1...c5 is at depth 50

[Uri Blass]

That is why, with perfect play, e4 should be better than d4

Surely with perfect play these are exactly equal in value. Both lead to the same outcome, right? Almost surely a draw.

Not quite.

On e4, black simply does not have a line that equalises fully, some Sicilian lines give fair chances, but are few and far between.

Petrov does not equalise, mainstream Caro-Kann also not, the Ruy Lopez gives white steady advantage, Philidor is a pain, etc.

On d4, most lines favour white, for example, the Queen's Indian Defence, whatever engines might think, most lines of the QGD and QGA, most lines of the Slav, the Nimzo-Indian is also bad for black, etc.
But, a single opening holds perfectly, providing full equality: the KID.

That is why, e4 is better with perfect play, while d4 scores better in a wider range of openings, but not with perfect play.

Fischer and Kasparov were no fools, and also Carlsen, they all like finachhetoeing their king bishops, whether with white or black, and the first 2 players had the KID as a staple of their opening repertoire.

Both Fischer and Kasparov preferred e4, and those are the 2 strongest players in history until the appearance of Carlsen.

Carlsen play both 1.e4 and 1.d4 so I think that both of them are equal.

I believe that practically black can get a draw in many ways both against 1.e4 and 1.d4

I am almost sure that 1.e4 c5 or 1.e4 e5 or 1.e4 e6 are draws.
It may be more interesting to invetigate
1.e4 h6 or 1.e4 a6 or 1.e4 Na6
White has a significant advantage but I am not sure if the advantage is enough to win against correct defence.

Of course black has no reason to choose one of these moves because there is no reason to suffer in order to get a draw even if you can do it.

Uri

[Laskos]

I disagree with lyudmil and I think that at least in 99% of the cases engines play the right move if you give them a long time to calculate.

if there are some cases when they do mistakes you can find it by the evaluation and if white play the right move based on long analysis in every move but black get the advantage after move 15 or move 20(at least 0.1 pawns for black) then it is better to do analysis to see where white went wrong in order to fix the book.

Starting point if we build a book for white is simply play the moves the engines suggest after a long analysis for white and moves that are in the database for black.

Same idea if we build an opening book for black but in the last case I suggest to try to fix only cases when the evaluation for white is at least 0.5 pawn for white because small advantage for white does not mean that black did a mistake.

That seems wrong. Engines' PV in a position, especially in the openings, are useless after 2-3 displayed half-moves. Even identical engines will play the expected reply only 70%-80% of the time, the next in PV 50%-60%, and so on decreasing. Engines have only a very fragmented outlook of the game, changing randomly "plans" and PV lines. Books need a trustworthy PV of 20 or so half-moves, a thing engines don't give.

The books are not built by leaving long analyzes of openings. Most lines are chosen by outcome statistics. Most games used are fast, for example PlayChess 1' and 3' per game.

I did not say to trust engine pv's except the first half move.
The idea is to analyze every position and pick the first move in the pv.

That's what I was saying, engine hops from old PV to new PV, a new PV which it didn't expect in the old PV, often ending during the opening in a bad position against a book. Lyudmil offered a good early position which SF evaluates at 16-26 cp after a long analysis, while really it was 45-50 cp as expected score goes. I don't think an early opening can be analyzed well having a crappy PV at the second-third half-move and the outcome being very far away. Maybe a combination of human planning the opening and an engine for blunder check is worth pursuing.