inspiration from computers : the Stockfish Factor

in the recent interview of the Uzbekistan coach ( Ivan Sokolov), as Uzbekistan won the gold medal at the chess olympiad in India, the following paragraph speaks volumes.

https://www.chess.com/news/view/captain-ivan-sokolov-coach-uzbekistan-olympiad

"You would have been considered completely crazy based on old books," said Sokolov. "In my case, it was Tabatabaei who came to me and said: 'You know, my computer has this idea and I cannot see anything wrong with it.' At first I said: 'Come on, this doesn't make any sense.' But then we started to look, and I realized the computer is right. It makes a lot of sense."

I call this the STOCKFISH FACTOR

of course you must think independently and not just read the "top move" or the "eval" but at the same time, you must at some point check how the engine ( which is most likely Stockfish) is evaluating your ideas.

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While I am not part of any olympiad team, I'd like to cover how I would use stockfish to find ideas from the White side. I am not talking about a novelty on move 17, but ideas shown by the computer that you could use in your own games.

My method is to let stockfish play against a weaker engine. I have tried to let Stockfish play itself or Stockfish14 play Stockfish13 or even Stockfish12. the percentage of draws is like 95% ( unless you start a position with +1.2 pawns).

By seeing Stockfish win against an engine which is still very strong, it shows the merits of the position and ideas to take the advantage. Keep in mind that the weaker engine is stronger than Magnus Carlsen !

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Now onto the chess part.

First position, a pirc/modern defense position

 1.e4 d6 2.d4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Be3 c6 5.Qd2 b5 6.Bd3

Then a King's Indian attack starting with 1e4 e6 2Qe2!? against the French Defense.

1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 c5 3.d3 Nc6 4.g3 d5 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Bg2 Be7 7.0–0

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while at very top level the modern/pirc defense is not that popular, I encounter this defense a lot online. as for the king's indian attack, this has been played by Fischer, and I'd rather play the KIA than learning a full repertoire with 1e4 e6 2d4 d5 3Nc3 or 3Nd2 or 3e5.

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the games are Stockfish 15 (Free) vs Komodo 12 (Free).

in the pirc/modern defense here's the key opening position

Now how does stockfish proceed here with White ?

Stockfish15 transfers the knight from c3 to e2 then g3. and SF15 plays c2-c3 to consolidate d4, which could be attacked by Black ( c6-c5 and the bishop on g7 is targetting White's center)

These are the kind of ideas one can reuse. I would have considered a2-a3 or Rad1 and Rfe1. also Bh6.

lets fast forward the game

Here Black played ..Nb6. If Black had played Bh8 to avoid exchanging the bishops, White would have played b2-b3 to open the c-file.

lets continue 

Black has expanded on the queenside. It is clear that White should try to attack the kingside as Black pieces are more to the left of the board and the Black king may be vulnerable.

But HOW EXACTLY ?

Now that the bishops of dark squares have been exchanged, White is playing Nh4 with idea f2-f4 and f4-f5. at some point the queen could come to g5. Black pieces are far from the king so Black is counting on activity on the queenside.  but even if black plays bxc3 and Na4 to attack c3, there are no major threats against White's queenside

I think Stockfish plan against the Modern/Pirc Defense makes tons of sense. 

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Now lets see the KIA.

Here Stockfish is using a well known plan. We note SF15 plays c2-c4 to limit Black's action on the queenside. We are in a different opening but SF15's strategy is the same : contain black on the queenside and mount an attack on the kingside. Here the pawn on e5 prevents black from having a knight on f6, so Black's king is an obvious target.

White to play

Here SF 15 plays Ng5! followed by Qh5!

lets fast forward the game further to see White's attack

Black to play

What is White's threat ? lets say Black plays b7-b5. What is White's winning idea ?

the answer is Rf6!! finishing in style

Komodo played f7-f5 to avoid such a finish.

Here's the entire game

and here Game 1 

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of course you could play different positions in the Pirc and King's Indian Attack, use other engines, take a few positions from actual GM games and let the engine battle it out. 

But I think this is the kind of work where mixing human intuition and computer play can help the preparation.  

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