Defeating the Petroff Defense

Gonnosuke makes it sound like a Tudorian drama.  I'm breathing hard.

Still, it's one data point. Just how popular is this particular Gonnosukian unsound gambit? You can look at the numbers any which way you like, you can talk to people who did in fact use it OTB (what did Mr. Benjamin say in the post-mortem?), you can also talk to people who don't use it in roughly the same position and ask them why.

Surely their answer would not be "oh I hadn't heard of it".

WanderingWinder:

I called it "outrageous" because by playing this move, white takes unnecessary risks and goes from being slightly more likely to win than to lose to being fairly more likely to lose than to win, especially when he has a better choice-4.Nf3. This is the way I use this word. Perhaps the way you use it is different, and you are welcome to take the word in my post to mean "highly dubious/speculative" if you feel that word is too strong here.

Richie and Gonnosuke:

If you can prove your point with some evidence rather than with rhetorical claims like "white is doing just fine with excellent chances of creating complications and winning chances" and "so rare in fact that the CG might be unique" (exactly how is the gambit's uniqueness even relevant to its soundness?!), I'm listening.

Start off by explaining why the Cochrane Gambit hasn't become the main line and why it is discredited by theory.

Bystanderz wrote: "Start off by explaining [why] the Cochrane Gambit hasn't become the main line and why it is discredited by theory."

I totally agree. When the conversation is this asymmetrical, there is a duty on the side of the gambiteer to begin by explaining the implicit unsoundness of the gambit.

Bronstein's awesome. He should have been world champion, he probably threw the match against Botvinnik. Between Bronstein, Keres, and Korchnoi, you probably have the three best players not to have the title.

So Bronstein played it. Did he play it often? I haven't read these writings (1.e4 e5 never occurs in my games), but where else does the argument lead?

Why didn't Anand play this against Kramnik in their recent match? He wrote about only playing 1.e4 once he was ok with a draw -- in other words Kramnik's favorite black defenses to 1.e4 were no longer possible.

There is still a long way to go to explain why nobody plays it other than "hey Bronstein played it and wrote about it and he's pretty good".

Perhaps the true test will be when the next player plays it against Mr. Kramnik. The first test is never the true test.

Hey, do you like my coinage of the word Gonnosukian??

And that is the beginning of the argument, but you would then want to come up with a list of GMs who you might expect would give it a try, and then see whether they have in fact tried it.

NM Ozzie: Eh......I actually meant that those who think the gambit is good should explain why it is good but yet hasn't become the main line and is discredited by theory. But I think you have a point.

Richie: Yeah, Bronstein is pretty good, so? Is Bronstein right and rest of the chess world wrong? Fischer was a better player than Bronstein, and he once wrote an article, claiming that a move he found refuted the King's Gambit; few GMs agreed with him. So should we disregard all other GMs' thoughts and say the KG is refuted just because Fischer claimed so?

Gonnosuke: Okay, if you put it that way, then I couldn't argue with you...I (wrongfully) thought that's what you meant since the gambit's soundness is what have been discussing. Though I don't think "all of the evidence seems to indicate that white does fine with it" (where is this evidence?). Note I never said the gambit has no merits nor that it has been *proven* to be unsound, but theory suggests that it is dubious and *probably* unsound. Of course, it is *possible* that these theories are wrong, but in view of the vast amount of work GMs have done over the years, the *odds* are: it is unsound (again, this doesn't necessarily mean black is winning).

There is a reason that the CG isn't the mainline. White takes an unnecessary risk. White's losing chances are probably increased more than his winning chances. Objectively, the line may be slightly worse than the main. But that doesn't mean the line is necessarily bad, that it is unsound, or that it might practically be better. On the other hand, it is in a way harder to play, as black gets an extra piece, and white has to play precisely and weather threats. Overall I find it an under-analysed opening, and I think that the right word for it is probably "speculative".

WanderingWinder: Hi, eh......just curious, is the birth date in your profile your REAL birth date?!

The reason it's not main line is not that it's bad, but that it's more risky. Most main lines tend to be more solid and don't involve very risky play. That doesn't mean that variations that include risky moves are automatically inferior to the main line.

I doubt it. As far as I know, a main line become a main line because it considered to be the best continuation (or one of the several best continuations, in which case we have several main lines). What about the Samisch in King's Indian? The Poisoned Pawn in Najdorf Sicilian? The Marshall in Ruy Lopez? These lines are hardly solid.

Doubtful, richie. I don't know who you are in real life, and I am certain to not answer 1.e4 with e5 :-)

I didn't realize you were making such a weak claim, so I guess I agree with you in terms of what you said.

Huh......alright. I dub a move "unsound" when it probably increases one's losing chances more than winning chances, or when it probably reduces the advantage or increases the disadvantage one already has (or both). And that seems to roughly be the way most chess experts/authors use the word. Many lines (for example, the Steinitz Variation of Giuoco Piano and the Budapest Gambit) don't lose by force and yet are called unsound. No offense, your definition of "sound" looks a little too narrow, because not even some of the refuted openings lose by force. But if that's the way you define the word, I'm fine with that.

Again, the Topalov-Kramnik encounter is just one game, such a small sample size is virtually meaningless.

What position? Black can't possibly play 9...cd. If you meant 9...dc, nobody plays that, the most common moves here are either ...d5 or ...Kf7.

Zugzwang position?! The last move you gave was a black move, shouldn't this mean that white would be at a disadvantage since it is now his move? Then where does this 0.00 score come from? If you mean any deviation from the line Rybka gave (rather than any move) would yield a disadvantage, then where does the term "zugzwang" come from?

In some of your earlier posts you claimed that "the line to Black eqaulity is not so clear", "[white has] excellent chances of creating complications and winning chances", and "[the line offers] a better chance for white than those in the main line", now you are thrashing all these claims and claiming ABSOLUTE equality?!

Rybka is very strong, but it sure takes a lot of guts to claim something like "absolute equality" when chess is not even solved.

benedictus, Today, The cochrane gambit is just considered a speculative and a mistaken sacrifice, where all main lines have been analyzed to a black advantage. it's...also not really hard for black if he just doesn't fall for a quick trap. For instance:

For example: in the ...d5 exd line: 6...Qe8+ probably just reaches a winning position):

The piece wins against the 3 pawns easily on this board. A piece wins easily against 3 pawns if the pawns aren't immediately mobile or otherwise dangerous. Just a simple technical matter. So if you block with your queen, the endgame is an easy technical win for black (if you didn't know that, that'd explain the misunderstanding).

Most people just think 3 pawns and 1 piece are equal...not really. depends if the pawns are immediately useable.

So, if you don't want to exchnage queens, how to respond to 6...Qe8+

7.Kf1 looks worse: 7...Bd6 and white has another piece that is in effect out of play for now (blocked bishop), white is stuck in the center, and against an extra piece, that's a big thing.

If you retreat with 7.Be2 c6. white's attack is over, and black just has more chances to use his extra piece than white has his pawns.

I'm willing to play this opening anytime as black. If you're interested, challenge me please:)

Heh cute. also has nothing to do with the subject of the previous posts:)

benedictus was talking about the 5.Bc4 lines and the replies have been to that. never d4. no one was talking about these. So the whole ...d5 line was reffering to the lines he posted after Bc4.

There are other easy ways for black with the (admittedly better) 5.d4 lines.

I have many wins against players many hundreds of points above me in the cochrane as black. I have done extensive work of my own on it and based it on previous theory and all I can say is this: In my opinion, white doesn't have an easy game in any variation, and black has at least one line with some advantage in every single line white chooses. I'd be happy to play it against anyone here as black.

sorry:) I have a bad habit of not posting lines when replying directly to someone else's line... will have to get rid of that one to make it clearer.

sometimes I can finish a game in one go,

but sometimes I have lots of work, so 3 days a move (default time here I believe). even if half the game may be finished in one go.

Agreed