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How top engines change our perception of chess !!

How top engines change our perception of chess !!

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CM thechesscorner64
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Who hasn't consulted top engines ?

Books have been written on AlphaZero, communities have been formed to enhance Stockfish year after year.

And Lc0 as well as Komodo are common names out there. Long time ago, Crafty and Rybka and Shredder were all the rage...

Whether you analyze your games on chess.com or follow a broadcast, you will often have access to the infamous engine bar and engine move recommendations.

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Besides finding out mistakes and blunders right after a game is played, can engines help us understand chess better ?

I think the answer is yes. 

Rules are meant to be broken, exceptions to the rules exist, and maybe old chess books with principles can be challenged by Depth 55 lines.....

For those of you wishing to learn how to install Stockfish14.1 within a free program (database or GUI) or within Chessbase, a quick tutorial is here

chess.com has also a computer championship page

https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship

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Shall I present a few positions along these lines ?

I do think that engines have demonstrated the importance of HYPER AGGRESSIVE PAWN PUSHES  on the WINGS  when CENTER HAS A CLOSED PAWN STRUCTURE

In this example, Komodo with White is dominated by Stockfish with Black starting  with 18..g5!

Historically, one can say that pushing pawns in front of our own king is usually not recommended in classic books and games. Here the closed nature of the center shows this was the right strategy, and Black executed this faster than White on the b-file. Note the amazing journey from the Black king as White was completely tied up.

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I could show dozen of games with the same pattern, but let's see what else is out there to fine-tune our collective chess understanding.

The concept of material vs activity is very important. Here's a game by Komodo against Fritz17

I think Komodo has correctly evaluated that losing the exchange ( White can do Bxf8 at any moment) is no big deal. 

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New opening ideas ? Sure engines can help us with that... Here's a sicilian opening position

White to play

Here the computer suggests 17e5!? 

Quite a strong idea. If Black tries to defend by 17..d5, we get the following position with a killer move for White !

18 Rf6!!

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another sicilian opening position 

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. h3
Nc6 7. Be3 e5 8. Nb3 Be6 9. Qf3!? Rc8 10. O-O-O Nb4 11. Kb1 h6

Can you guess the suggested move here ?
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SF14 suggests 12 Bc1!?. This retreats enables White to play Nd5 or a2-a3 and Nd5. Nd5 right away loses the c2 pawn and the knight on c2 attacks the bishop on e3.
Here's how a computer game went in this line
Very convincing !
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White to play, can you guess the engine's top line ?
I would think of several candidate moves. However, I failed to consider SF14's recommendation which is 12 Nb1!?
Here's another one, White to play 
here, once again the center looks static and closed.  Stockfish decides to go with 10.g4!
Right away !
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But can chess computers create brilliant games and finishes ?
Here's how Stockfish wrapped up a bullet(!!) game with style