One thing I like to do is play engine tournaments with some of the strongest free engines out there. Often times my engines dont have books, and just calculate from move 1. Often times I see them play the mov e below. It looks terrible to me, so my question is, why would they play it?

over protecting the e5 pawn, though there are better ways of doing this, aka d6, or simply ignoring the threat and playing a mainline

because to make computers weak they are forced to play a move within a certain time limit. It is not a good move but its not immediately losing either.  When I face this of wacky move I tend to 1) respect it 2) not try to be fancy 3) after the game see what good players do as both sides. 

Below are a few games. Seems Black has some big problems in dealing with a central advance. The karpov game was a simul so its not as serious but a good indication of problems

I've seen this as well.  I usually respond with a zerg swarm on the Kingside.

parham is better?

LOL

anyways, thanks to the "serious" people for the input. When I first saw this by a weak version of Crafty, I wrote it off, but I'm seeing it with many strong engines

hm i have a reason... the parham is just plain bad while the Ruy Lopez is good.

The parham looses tempo, develops the queen way to early, and allows black to have an easy time developing, though it was played by Nakamura, he no longer uses it. Also The Ruy is proven sound, and the number one way to avoid theory is to simply just play an uncommon move.

Just because one master plays an opening a few times doesn't mean its good. I don't see him springing it in an actualy tournament. I bet he would never dream over playing that in the Tal Memorial, Londen Classic, or WC Candidate's matches

yes but for whatups, there is no key to becoming gm except hard work.

any I would play 3. ...f5 in the Ruy

actually whatupydog, you are an amateur. dont want to sound rude or anything, but you arent good until you reach 2200

It's because he's a good player that he can get away with 2.Qh5.

It's the same reason that Miles got away with 1...a6.

It has nothing to do with the opening.

but u r not titled are you? if you are 2200 in the real world that means you are titled, which you are not

would someone please post some conrete lines in which white is better? blunder free i might add (besides the 2.Qh5 blunder)

Oh no...

@jetfighter die-hard parham fans would play 3.Bc4 in your Nc6 line

5...Bd6 6.e5 GG.

5...d5 is better.

here is my take on the parham

http://blog.chess.com/ChristianSoldier007/the-parham-attack

In my database I have Nakamura playing it twice: one loss, one draw. If I ever need an opening to score 25% with White, I'll know just where to find it.

He also played 1.e4 c5 2.Qh5 against a grandmaster once and lost in 23 moves--as White!