Confusing Caro-Kann lines, or explorer broken?

Playing black, after 5.Nf3, the obvious move, and the best move according to the engine, is ..Nxe4. But in the master games explorer, the most common move by far in this position is ..Nbd7, which gives away all your advantage. Why would you not take the free knight?

So if you instead play the best move Nxe4 and white attacks your knight with Bd3, the most common move in that position is again Nd7, which makes no sense. What's going on here?

i don't have access to the opening explorer, but it is possible to reach the position after 5.nbd7 with a different move order. 4..nd7 5 nf3 ngf6 and you have the same position, except white did not have to blunder a knight in another line to reach it. the master games likely used this move order, and the opening explorer is probably also giving the position coming from 4..nd7.

i suspect this is also the case with bd3. the opening explorer will find a position where this can be reached, and not necessarily the one you input in that order, and then it will show which is the most played move there.

it won't make sense of course but you should just blunder check, and not trust the feature blindly.

this is the move order i am talking about. you see it reached the position both after 5 nf3 blundering the knight on e4 and also bd3 with black blundering his own knight on e4, but with this move order there are no hanging knights. so it may be suggesting the most common move from this move order, which makes sense since 4..nd7 is a main line, and there's lots of games with this move, most of them from the old pre-computer era.

Ah yes, I believe you're right. I misinterpreted the explorer. When it shows the move Nbd7 and the number 1811, it should be read as "Nbd7 leads to a position that has been reached 1811 times", NOT as "Nbd7 has been played 1811 times in this position". Thanks!

yep, something like that. welcome.

indeed. The main confusion for me is your line (the "obvious ") 5.Nf3?? No white player would play that! Maybe 5. Nxf6+, 5. Ng5, 5. Ng3. And yes, I've been playing the CK for years! ✌🏽

:tup

No, I meant that black's reply Nxe4 is obvious.

I have seen white play 5.Nf3 a couple of times in that position. And I have always replied with the obvious Nxe4. And then I was surprised when I saw other ideas in the explorer, but now I understand the reason for that.

This is a ubiquitous confusion with the Opening Explorer. Of course users are interested in BOTH how many times the next position is reached, and how many times the move is played. Knowing one without the other, if its a high number, creates the impression that a particular move is much more popular than it actually is. It could in fact be a bad equalising move made from a strong position.

What is this the tarkatower opening declined? lol