Whatever is current - Amazing Leela

[Dann Corbit]

Here is the {partial} openings report from my correspondence database for that opening:
[d]r1bqkbnr/pppp1ppp/2n5/4p3/2B1P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R b KQkq -

Code: Select all

Database: ecorr (1,951,309 games)
Report: Opening Report (40983 games)
Generated by: Scid vs. PC 4.17, 2019.06.28

1. Statistics and History

1.1 Statistics

                   Games     1-0     =-=     0-1    Score
-----------------------------------------------------------
 All report games  40984   15363   11715   13870    51.8%
-----------------------------------------------------------

1.2 Oldest games

  1:  0-1(15) NN unknown player - Nash, corr 1883
  2:  1-0(38) Chigorin - Steinitz, telegraph match 1890 [1]
  3:  0-1(38) Steinitz - Chigorin, telegraph match 1890 [1]
  4:  0-1(92) Steinitz - Janowski, ? 1898 [1]
  5:  1-0(29) Chigorin - Lebedev, corr 1900 [1]

1.3 Newest games

  1:  *(7) Mytsko 2306 - Kos 2317, ICCF 2019.03.01
  2:  *(13) Szymanski 2384 - Salcedo Mederos 2389, ICCF 2019.03.01
  3:  =-=(45) Gulbis 2199 - Rosenhöfer 2277, ICCF 2019.02.28
  4:  =-=(15) Ottesen 2378 - Jensen 2406, ICCF 2019.02.28
  5:  1-0(8) Parushev 2342 - Veselinov 2107, ICCF 2019.01.21

1.4 Current popularity

Year               1800-99 1900-49 1950-69 1970-79 1980-89 1990-99 2000-09 2010-19
Once every X games    4      14      34      38      47      50      46      49   

Frequency in all years:   once every 47 games
In the 10 years to today: once every 50 games (down 5% from all years)
In the  5 years to today: once every 47 games (no change from all years)
In the  1 year  to today: once every 45 games (up 4% from all years)

1.5 Most frequent players (White)

  1: 121  1982-2016  64%  2847  Krueger, Hilmar [1]
  2: 111  1997-2017  63%  2408  Wosch, Arkadiusz [1]
  3:  91  1965-2015  55%  2398  Bohak, Janko [1]
  4:  82  2001-2016  79%  2469  Kahl, Fred
  5:  81  2001-2011  70%  2390  Fritsche, Frank
  6:  55  1990-2016  55%        Grott, Peter [1]

1.6 Most frequent players (Black)

  1:  97  1984-2014  66%  2455  Leisebein, Peter
  2:  42  2003-2017  46%  2332  Zielinski, Sergej
  3:  39  1998-2004  54%  2621  Hanison, Bernard [1]
  4:  38  1988-2004  59%  2153  Leisebein Peter (GER)
  5:  36  1990-2017  43%  2383  Parushev, Alexandar Miroslavovich
  6:  33  1997-2009  32%  2305  Malmstroem, Jan [1]

2. Ratings and Performance

2.1 Average ratings and performance

White rating: 2350 (7551 games); White performance: 2362 (52% vs 2348)
Black rating: 2348 (7539 games); Black performance: 2336 (48% vs 2350)

2.2 Games with highest average rating

  1:  =-=(38) Caruana 2811 - Anand 2797, Baden-Baden GER 2015 [1]
  2:  =-=(36) Radjabov 2724 - Carlsen 2881, Dubai UAE 2014 [1]
  3:  1-0(41) Carlsen 2826 - Nakamura 2758, London ENG 2011 [1]
  4:  =-=(26) Radjabov 2761 - Anand, ? 2009 [1]
  5:  1-0(26) Giri 2773 - Anand 2804, Stavanger NOR 2015 [1]
  6:  =-=(31) Nakamura 2799 - Giri 2776, Khanty-Mansiysk RUS 2015 [1]
  7:  =-=(36) Nakamura 2775 - Anand 2793, London ENG 2014 [1]
  8:  =-=(47) Morozevich 2788 - Carlsen 2775, Moscow RUS 2008 [9]

3. Result Trends

3.1 Result lengths and frequencies

                 Score      Game length             Frequency       
                          1-0    =-=    0-1    1-0     =-=     0-1  
 Report games    51.8%     38     34     36   37.4%   28.5%   33.8% 
 All games       54.3%     35     36     35   35.9%   36.8%   27.1% 

3.2 Shortest wins (White)

  1:  1-0(5) Alonso González - Owens, ICCF 2008
  2:  1-0(5) Barhorst - Taffijn, IECG 2004
  3:  1-0(6) Spasov 2575 - Inkiov 2505, Sofia BUL 1996
  4:  1-0(6) Gagliardi - Peled, ICCF 2008
  5:  1-0(6) Jacobsen - Quansah, ICCF 2007

3.3 Shortest wins (Black)

  1:  0-1(4) Voveris - Dineen, FICGS 2013
  2:  0-1(5) Owens - Alonso González, ICCF 2008
  3:  0-1(6) Jovcic 2446 - Geenen 2575, ? 1998
  4:  0-1(7) Tenev - Mayr, ICCF 2010
  5:  0-1(7) Boskovic 2207 - Gomez-Galan Arense, LSS 2006

4. Moves and Themes

4.1 Move orders reaching the report position

There were 6 move orders reaching this position:  1:  1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 (40284)
  2:  1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nf3 (411)
  3:  1.e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 e5 3.Bc4 (223)
  4:  1.Nf3 Nc6 2.e4 e5 3.Bc4 (59)
  5:  1.e4 Nc6 2.Bc4 e5 3.Nf3 (5)
  6:  1.Nf3 e5 2.e4 Nc6 3.Bc4 (1)

4.2 Moves from the report position

    Move      Frequency    Score  Draw AvElo Perf AvYear ECO
 1: Nf6     19106: 46.6%   50.4%  27%  2060  2051  2001 C55a 
 2: Bc5     18971: 46.2%   51.2%  33%  2053  2043  2004 C50h 
 3: Be7       816:  1.9%   57.5%  18%  1839  1848  2004 C50e 
 4: h6        779:  1.9%   68.6%   9%  1568  1513  2007      
 5: d6        569:  1.3%   65.4%  13%  1727  1735  2003 C50d 
 6: Nd4       174:  0.4%   57.7%  11%  1549  1617  2003 C50c 
 7: f5        126:  0.3%   54.7%  16%  1954  1903  1997 C50b 
 8: Nh6        70:  0.1%   81.4%   3%  1423  1537  2004      
 9: a6         63:  0.1%   75.3%   8%  1759  1557  2003      
10: f6         52:  0.1%   71.1%   8%  1629  1618  2005      
11: Qe7        50:  0.1%   92.0%   4%  1633  1464  2005      
12: g6         45:  0.1%   72.2%  20%  1961  1792  2004      
13: Qf6        43:  0.1%   70.9%   7%        1452  2005      
14: Na5        42:  0.1%   85.7%   5%  1493  1472  2006      
15: Bb4        29:  0.0%   68.9%   7%  1634  1639  2002      
16: d5         11:  0.0%   81.8%   0%              2001      
17: Bd6         8:  0.0%   43.7%  13%              2008      
18: b6          8:  0.0%   62.5%   0%              1999      
19: g5          7:  0.0%   71.4%   0%              2004      
20: Nge7        7:  0.0%   57.1%  29%              2002      
21: a5          2:  0.0%  100.0%   0%              2001      
22: b5          2:  0.0%  100.0%   0%              1999      
23: h5          2:  0.0%   75.0%  50%              2007      
24: [end]       1:  0.0%  100.0%   0%              2018 C50a 
25: Qg5         1:  0.0%  100.0%   0%              1999      
__________________________________________________________________
TOTAL:      40984:100.0%   51.8%  29%  2037  2021  2002

4.3 Positional Themes

Frequency of themes in the first 20 moves of each game
   Same-side castling             61%    White Isolated Queen Pawn      16%
   Opposite castling               8%    Black Isolated Queen Pawn       5%
   Queens exchanged               14%    White Pawn on 5/6/7th rank     53%
   Only one side has Bishop pair  48%    Black Pawn on 2/3/4th rank     37%
   Kingside pawn storm             3%    Open c/d/e file                51%

4.4 Endgames

Material at the end of each game:
                   P     BN      R   R,BN      Q   Q,BN    Q,R Q,R,BN
 Report games     2%     6%     7%    25%     2%     3%     5%    51%
 All games        1%     7%     7%    27%     1%     4%     4%    48%

5. Theory Table

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  +15362 =11715 -13870 (21219.5/40983: 52%)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     1        2        3        4        5        6        7        8     
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  [1]      c3       d3       Bb3      Nbd2     OO       h3       Re1      481:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       Ba7      OO       d6       Ne7      Ng6[2]   53%

 2           c3       d3       Bb3      Nbd2     OO       h3       Re1       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       Ba7      OO       d6       h6       Re8[3]   50%

 3           c3       d3       Bb3      Nbd2     OO       h3       Re1       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       Ba7      OO       d6       h6       Nh5[4]    0%

 4           c3       d3       Bb3      Nbd2     h3       Nf1      Qe2       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       Ba7      OO       Kh8      d5       de4[5]   50%

 5           c3       d3       Bb3      Nbd2     h3       Nf1      Qe2       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       Ba7      OO       d6       d5       h6[6]    100%

 6           c3       d3       Bb3      Nbd2     h3       Nf1      Ng3       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       Ba7      OO       d6       Ne7      Ng6[7]   100%

 7           c3       d3       Bb3      Nbd2     Qe2      h3       Nf1       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d5       Ba7      Re8      Na5[8]   50%

 8           c3       d3       Bb3      h3       Bg5      Nbd2     Nh4       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       Qe7      Nd8      Ne6[9]   50%

 9           c3       d3       Bb3      Bg5      Bh4      Nbd2     Bg3       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       h6       Be7      d6       Re8[10]   0%

10           c3       d3       Bb3      Bg5      Bh4      Bg3      Nbd2      1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       h6       g5       d6       Nh5[11]  50%

11           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       h3       Be3      Ba7       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       Ba7      d6       Be6      Ra7[12]  50%

12           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       ed5      h3       Re1       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d5       Nd5      Nb6      h6[13]   100%

13           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       Nbd2     h3       Re1       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       Ba7      h6       Nh5[14]  50%

14           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       Nbd2     h3       Re1       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       Re8      Be6      h6[15]   50%

15           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       Nbd2     h3       Re1       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       Re8      Be6      h6[16]   50%

16           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       Nbd2     h3       Re1       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       Re8      Be6      h6[17]   50%

17           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       h3       Be3      fe3       1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       Ba7      Be3      Ne7[18]  100%

18           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       h3       Re1      Nbd2      1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       h6       Ba7      Be6[19]  50%

19           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       h3       Re1      Nbd2      1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       h6       Ba7      Nh5[20]  50%

20           c3       d3       Bb3      OO       h3       Re1      Nbd2      1:
    Bc5      Nf6      a6       OO       d6       h6       Ba7      Nh5[21]  100%

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Ovyron]

The real problem here (for reference purposes) is that there are zero games between high end computer systems for this odd (1.e4 e5 2.Qf3 *) opening.

The ones I have seen have led to positions where white has winning advantage, and white was a cluster that was playing without book (discovering Qf3 by itself, and playing the rest of the winning moves by itself.) This Cluster would have beaten easily* all the human players in these databases, and correspondence chess players from 2015 and before (like Milos said? ) with 2.Qf3. The point was that it was performing better with Qf3 than with any other white alternative, against opposition that was very well booked in the other variations.

*Disclaimer: or at least reach winning positions. As I have said, the cluster also messed up and couldn't win those games...

But, anyway, my comments were never about these specific openings, they were general, about how there's a current opening revolution happening, a revolution that is obsoleting the theory that we had at January 2019, with Stockfish derivatives that didn't exist back then, and Leela. And people that aren't contending are missing it.

The funny thing about all this is that, apparently this is nothing new, as I discovered yesterday, I already knew about all this and had forgotten... here's me talking in 2009 (about a decade ago):

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... #pid140072

basically, if your book isn't build from correspondence games, it's not to be trusted much, only as a guideline for opening theory but if it's build from 3 0 games on playchess or games between weak humans (and when you compare them to Rybka 3...) the move that scores 90% and has been played to death may be a losing move.

The only difference is that now, moves played in correspondence chess older than recent years have reached the level of uselessness of blitz games of the last year.

The games I've been talking about (that have been busting entire openings) are just 12 minutes + 2 seconds long, but they are being played at a level higher than corr chess games from 2016 (at years for the entire game time controls), so most games in most databases about openings have become irrelevant.

[corres]

I have an ancient 4core machine from 2010 and have been using these lines to defeat people in latest 10core ones, being outsearched by 10plies or more, doesn't make any sense to me, unless there are "book wins."

I am afraid that "private book" used by you was made not on your 4 core ancient machine.
So you used for competitions not only your old PC but those PCs what were used to make the "private book" too.

[jp]

If you really wanna explore the opening you need to play MC with strong engines and artificially introduce some randomness. There is really no other way.

What are the best ways, and what are the easiest ways, to do that?

The answers may be different for different engines, of course. e.g. for commercial engines, we don't have access to the code.

[Uri Blass]

The real problem here (for reference purposes) is that there are zero games between high end computer systems for this odd (1.e4 e5 2.Qf3 *) opening.

The ones I have seen have led to positions where white has winning advantage, and white was a cluster that was playing without book (discovering Qf3 by itself, and playing the rest of the winning moves by itself.) This Cluster would have beaten easily* all the human players in these databases, and correspondence chess players from 2015 and before (like Milos said? ) with 2.Qf3. The point was that it was performing better with Qf3 than with any other white alternative, against opposition that was very well booked in the other variations.

*Disclaimer: or at least reach winning positions. As I have said, the cluster also messed up and couldn't win those games...

But, anyway, my comments were never about these specific openings, they were general, about how there's a current opening revolution happening, a revolution that is obsoleting the theory that we had at January 2019, with Stockfish derivatives that didn't exist back then, and Leela. And people that aren't contending are missing it.

The funny thing about all this is that, apparently this is nothing new, as I discovered yesterday, I already knew about all this and had forgotten... here's me talking in 2009 (about a decade ago):

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... #pid140072

basically, if your book isn't build from correspondence games, it's not to be trusted much, only as a guideline for opening theory but if it's build from 3 0 games on playchess or games between weak humans (and when you compare them to Rybka 3...) the move that scores 90% and has been played to death may be a losing move.

The only difference is that now, moves played in correspondence chess older than recent years have reached the level of uselessness of blitz games of the last year.

The games I've been talking about (that have been busting entire openings) are just 12 minutes + 2 seconds long, but they are being played at a level higher than corr chess games from 2016 (at years for the entire game time controls), so most games in most databases about openings have become irrelevant.

I do not believe that 12+2 seconds games are played at a level that is higher than correspondence games from 2016.

Software and hardware got better from 2016 but I am sure that even Rybka3 is stronger than the relevant level if
you give it 12000 minutes+2000 seconds time control.

[zullil]

The games I've been talking about (that have been busting entire openings) are just 12 minutes + 2 seconds long, but they are being played at a level higher than corr chess games from 2016 (at years for the entire game time controls), so most games in most databases about openings have become irrelevant.

Perhaps if you posted even one example of such an "opening-busting game" folks might pay more attention to your posts. Apparently these games have already been played, or so your post suggests.

[Ovyron]

I am afraid that "private book" used by you was made not on your 4 core ancient machine.
So you used for competitions not only your old PC but those PCs what were used to make the "private book" too.

Right, but this is irrelevant as it applies to free books as well, as you didn't use your hardware to build them. I was answering about how certain I was about those book linens being good, and I was saying that those lines are good no matter the hardware, and that a David Vs. Goliath scenario is good enough for me (say, if David shoots Goliath with a shotgun to win the shotgun is good.)

Software and hardware got better from 2016 but I am sure that even Rybka3 is stronger than the relevant level if
you give it 12000 minutes+2000 seconds time control.

We're talking apples and oranges. What I'm saying is, if you pitch my machine with the strongest private book against that Rybka with generic openings, and it plays the Italian as white, I can use the critical line to reach a winning position (say, a position where another Rybka at that time control would always beat your Rybka.)

If it doesn't play the Italian as white, I get crushed.
If someone competent implements a decent book, I get crushed.

But using 12 minutes of my time to reach a winning position against 12000 minute Rybka with generic books should mean something, so my point stands people investigating generic openings and rating lists and TCEC using generic openings are wasting their time, and if engines could make a choice of what book to use wouldn't play those moves if they needed to win. And they wouldn't use public books either (like in CC Championships of the past.)

Perhaps if you posted even one example of such an "opening-busting game" folks might pay more attention to your posts.

Engaging in these discussions has been very revealing to me about what the general public knows about the current status and advancements of opening theory. For this I'd like to coin the term of "corking" moves. Apparently, people are working really hard into discovering critical variations that bust what people are mostly playing, and then they save them to a private book and leave them "corked". Then, when an important game comes up and the line gets to be played, it's "uncorked", just to win them that one game, and if you analyze the line at corr time control, you realize it's the best a side could have played, and that the other side is best avoiding that line (to the extreme, it seems white should avoid 1.e4, suprisingly.)

Before these discussions, I wrongly believed that once that happened, everyone knew the line. It lost all its value, hard work should be put into corking some other line. But instead, what happens is that that one game fades into obscurity, nobody knows about the line, so it can pretend it's still corked, so that it's a lot more valuable to cork lines because, while the lines of public books are in the open and they become obsolete after a quick time, the lines I'm talking about will have long-lasting life, and can be uncorked and uncorked again against opponents that turn out to lack the knowledge, that turns out to belong to a few privileged individuals. The worst thing that can happen is the line being featured as the weapon of a public book, then it's over.

This is great to know and I hope this offsets shooting myself in the foot for this, I can only imagine people in the know reading my posts considering me a blabbermouth that would be better keeping all this secret. Because it's all worthless once it goes mainstream.

[corres]

I am afraid that "private book" used by you was made not on your 4 core ancient machine.
So you used for competitions not only your old PC but those PCs what were used to make the "private book" too.

Right, but this is irrelevant as it applies to free books as well, as you didn't use your hardware to build them. I was answering about how certain I was about those book linens being good, and I was saying that those lines are good no matter the hardware, and that a David Vs. Goliath scenario is good enough for me (say, if David shoots Goliath with a shotgun to win the shotgun is good.)
...

When I make an internet connection I use a 15 years old Core2Duo PC.
When I work on something out of internet I use a many cores PC.
If your opponent diverges from the the lines of private book this causes "confusion" for a four cores PC.
Based on my experience to use a strong book effectively one needs a strong PC also.

[todd]

Corking/uncorking is a good analogy - so much so that it's already been in common use for decades in chess writing Google for "uncorked a novelty" and you'll get a lot of matches.

Regarding the Italian, I'm not sure exactly what's being discussed here.

In my own exploration of the Italian it became clear that some lines are played badly by engines at moderate depth (the kind that you'd reach in the 12+2 games being discussed here if you're out of book and running on something like a Threadripper). The most prominent of these lines are where white plays an early Bg5 and black strikes back with h6-g5 and an eventual kingside attack where black's breakthroughs often take high depth to find.

However, white is certainly under no obligation to play Bg5 in the Italian. And even if white does play Bg5, if white follows up with better moves, black still won't be better (you should get some fireworks and a draw, just like in pretty much every other sound and forcing opening).

Also, if you simply want to show that it's still white who is trying to press after 3. Bc4, consider that white may play d3-Nc3 instead of d3-c3, resulting in symmetrical positions where it's white's move.

[todd]

By the way, a fun example of the sort of chaos that ensues when white plays Bg5 in the Italian just occurred in top human play a few days ago: https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2019-gr ... Ding_Liren