$20,000 ICUC - a report on wins

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

regarding the Marschall, I can not share anything, as there are endless lines to analyse, but one thing is certain: there is not a single sound black gambit, and the Marschall is a gambit.
after Be3, black has no satisfactory reply, one way or another.

simply with 15...Be6! and so on =

'no sound Black gambit' ? hmm well i have to think about that
but indeed i prefer gambits with White only indeed;
yet your statement is in disagreement with your
remark that 3...f5 the Schliemann/Jaenisch gambit in the RL
is the best Black defense. It's a *gambit* and although it's
sharp/double-edged i don't think it's good in computer chess
(for Black); if White has a good book

the Jaenisch is not a gambit, as black returns the sacrificed pawn very soon.

a gambit is an opening, where there is not an obvious compensation for material deficiency.

you are very very wrong, as usual, 3...f5 is black's best answer to the Ruy Lopez, the only reason it is not that popular is that is sharp, and sharp openings generally get fewer followers.

15...Be6 certainly should lose, no time now for detailed analysis, but that is more than obvious.

[Moderation] The 'as usual' is uncalled for, especially since the person with by far the longest track record of being wrong is yourself,. It can qualify as a personal attack. Please moderate you rethoric, so that I don't have to do it!

[jefk]

[
you are very very wrong, as usual,
3...f5 is black's best answer to the Ruy Lopez, the only reason it is not that popular is that is sharp, and sharp openings generally get fewer followers.

as 'usual' ? haha Tsvetkov this time you are exceeding even yourself;
yet despite it's comical nature it's maybe time to notify a
moderator. Although your filling almost half of this forum
with postings, the quality of them, as above, goes down.

You usually don't backup your claims with analysis, and when
you do, like in the French, it's clear that you were bluffing.

Just as here with your 3..f5?! claim. It's certainly not the best move,
it's a very risky move, like f4 in the kings gambit; oh and it *is*
a gambit because after 4.d3, after a few moves White wins the Black
pawn on e5.

As for your ludicrous claim concerning the Marshall with d4, i'm
not even going to respond anymore; your knowledge of chess
openings seems rather poor indeed and you have no record
of played games nor a rating to prove otherwise.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

[
you are very very wrong, as usual,
3...f5 is black's best answer to the Ruy Lopez, the only reason it is not that popular is that is sharp, and sharp openings generally get fewer followers.

as 'usual' ? haha Tsvetkov this time you are exceeding even yourself;
yet despite it's comical nature it's maybe time to notify a
moderator. Although your filling almost half of this forum
with postings, the quality of them, as above, goes down.

You usually don't backup your claims with analysis, and when
you do, like in the French, it's clear that you were bluffing.

Just as here with your 3..f5?! claim. It's certainly not the best move,
it's a very risky move, like f4 in the kings gambit; oh and it *is*
a gambit because after 4.d3, after a few moves White wins the Black
pawn on e5.

As for your ludicrous claim concerning the Marshall with d4, i'm
not even going to respond anymore; your knowledge of chess
openings seems rather poor indeed and you have no record
of played games nor a rating to prove otherwise.

at least I am doing something original, while you mostly restrict yourself to copy-pasting.

how do you judge by a single game that the Winaver is not lost/very bad?

how do you know 3...f5 is worse than 3...a6 or the Berlin?

human theory so far has mainly relied only on human analysis of specific game continuations, while I am using Stockfish and Komodo to check different lines.

[jefk]

human theory so far has mainly relied only on human analysis of specific game continuations, while I am using Stockfish and Komodo to check different lines.

at least you now admit to use top-engines instead of your own
eval; for which there's no engine to check if it's right; as for
using engines, well you're not the only one; i started checking
opening theory already some 30 yrs ago, although the engines
weren't so good at the time; gradually some more people were
following a similar approach, then came Aquarium enabling a deep
analysis of opening variations, check Kaufman's book the
advantage for White and Black (or something like that).
Later i wrote a book as well aimed at intermediate level.
In the meantime opening analysis continues, although
we -or at least most of us- know that in the end there's
no fundamental advantage for White anymore; well, unless
black plays the Schliemann/Jaenisch gambit maybe..
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscol ... id=1004274

[jefk]

how do you know 3...f5 is worse than 3...a6 or the Berlin?

it's obvious; you don't want to come in an endgame
with disadvantage if you are Black;
Ever heard of the Cerebellum book ?
and then there's the Chessbase livebook.
Plenty of deep opening analysis around these days.
In correspondence chess it would be foolish
to play 3...f5. Unless you would have found some
really fundamental innovation in these lines,
which i doubt can be found in this dubious defense.

[JJJ]

As a genius myself, I know when I meet one. Lyudmil is a genius. Of course he is not always right, but even his way of being wrong is genius.

[jefk]

Lyudmil is a genius. Of course he is not always right,

fine, yet, being helpful, i would suggest him to continue in his niche research of postional evaluation; there are some other books written with an algorithmic approach to this issue, but i have to look it up to mention the author etc.
certain opening lines sometimes changes due to a changed eval or other moves, like eg recently there was a news book written about the Benoni again.
Yet such situations are rare i think; of course any genius can sidestep sometimes a bit; even I am doing this sometimes, youknow

[jefk]

[quote="jefk"]there are some other books written with an algorithmic approach
[/quote]

here's what i had in mind
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/b ... _play.html

by a physicist and chess player Shashin; and here's an excerpt
http://www.chess.co.uk/downloads/best-p ... sample.pdf
a bit complicated maybe, but not for a computer , although you most
likely can't use such ideas simply in existing engines as Stockfish.

Anyway i think that in this area there's still scope for improvement.
whereby i would suggest there's hardly any optimal strategy,
it can depend on style, opponent, objective of the game (do you
need a win at a certain tournament stage, thus playing risky)
or do you have enough with a draw thus going for a boring game

[Ozymandias]

agree that 12.d4 can be equalized by Black, Tsvetkov probably
is running behind most GM theory with his SF analysis.
[...]
i prefer 1.d4 instead of 1.e4 again, with some new analysis
ofcourse trying to maintain an advantage, which i will
not reveil here right now; look later at my correspondence
games i would suggest

I'm not quite certain about what is it, that he's basing his statements on, I asked about the kind of games he was looking at, where he was seeing white winning, but no specifics have been given so far.

I will check your d4 games, but I don't thinks there's a realistic white edge, aways from the Queen's Gambit, and that was already neutralised.

regarding the Marschall, I can not share anything, as there are endless lines to analyse, but one thing is certain: there is not a single sound black gambit, and the Marschall is a gambit.

after Be3, black has no satisfactory reply, one way or another.

interesting, how those players manage to draw it?

I'm not asking about lines, but general conditions of the games you keep referring to. Until such a time, when you deem appropriate to share that info, I'm going to side with Jef, who at least has participated in the last ICUC.

Black manages to draw, by playing what's been proven on thousands of games. I'm well aware about the possibility of a key move being missed, due to engine pruning, and all those games being basically a repetition of an original white mistake, but I'd say this is highly unlikely, in this particular position.

I am using Stockfish and Komodo to check different lines.

Again, can you outline the procedure, so your statements have some data backing them?

Nowadays, achieving a win needs most subtile positional methods or - sadly to say - any kind of blunders. So let's have a closer look, how the most important of the 23 decided games in this tournament came along. By the way 23 decided games means barely 2 out of 19 games per round.

Arno Nickel

After the philosophical debate, Arno and I had on the EMT's chat, it looks like he's settled for a compromise, he now talks of "decided" games, rather than "won". He still refers to the prize winners as "winners", but I take it as a good start. He's also admitting (in the text I bolded), the point Thomas and I were making when we wrote the report, so there's that too.

[jefk]

I will check your d4 games, but I don't thinks there's a realistic white edge,
aways from the Queen's Gambit, and that was already neutralised.

well, i meant the 'correspondence games' i'm playing currently
(on ICCF); but they can't be seen yet until a tourn is finished.
So in fact instead of 'have a look at my correspondence games'
i meant : keep looking at my correspondence games (in future).

But i agree the 'fundamental' advantage for White (which by far
is already not enough to win) is becoming less and less.
Depending on the engine, and sort of endgame, you can
choose certain lines. Currently i'm playing Slave with e3,
but i'm not going to say which novelties i found. Not that
they are so shocking btw, like i said, it's a matter of
preference and style. I'm happy if i win two games
in a correspondence masters tourn (about 12 opponents)
with no losses. If it's only one win, well than you might
not get 1st or 2nd place, thus not promote to a higher tourn.
And faster comps won't help, it's almost a 'dead end' i'm afraid.
As you conclude as well.