Engine refutation of popular openings?

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Avatar of llama36
brink2017 wrote:

The Portuguese line in the Scandinavian (1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Nf6 3 d4 Bg4) looks to be on very thin ice these days. In Smerdon's very good book on the 2...Nf6 Scandinavian he says that if there is a refutation to 3 d4 Bg4 then it must be 4 f3 Bf5 5 g4!. Stockfish appears to not like black's side at all in the Portuguese. 

I forgot which GM said it, but during the candidates commentary he pointed out that many openings with something that looks bad (like +1.2) tend to go to a draw at very high depth / as you explore them more, simply for the reason that eventually everything either goes to mate or draw.

They were talking about Caruana's habit of purposefully giving himself "bad" positions that are eventually a draw with very good play.

Avatar of tlay80
nighteyes1234 wrote:
tlay80 wrote:

One thing that makes conversation difficult is that people sometimes use the word "refuted" to mean different things -- and may in particular mean different things when they call a Black opening refuted than from when they say the same of a White opening.  I wouldn't call any of those three openings refuted if what we mean is that they lose by force. 

Refuted doesnt mean lose by force. Only people who care about winning or losing care about that. In fact, I've lost many a 5 min game in superior evals. Even long games...but the deal is im not looking at one game. If you are looking to win one 2 min game, hardly anything is 'refuted'...but for me, if im learning thats a plus than winning a no effort required.

I think you’re proving my point, which is that people mean a range of different things by “refuted.” Standards differ from person to person and even from situation to situation (one often thinks refutations in different terms for black and white). That’s why it often becomes helpful to slow down and clarify what you mean by “refuted.”

Avatar of tygxc

#22
"people mean a range of different things by “refuted.” "
++ refuted or busted means: it loses by force
Any other meaning makes no sense: when it draws it cannot be refuted
Fischer already wrote that about the King's Gambit 'it loses by force' and about the Dragon Variation 'weak players beat Grandmasters with it' and implied it about the King's Indian Defence 'He had come well-armed for my King's Indian'.
The engines only confirmed his verdicts.

Avatar of pfren
tygxc wrote:

 

#7
"And even following the 7...Nc6 Mar del Plata policy, the most consistent answer to 9.b4 is 9...Nh5! - Nefedov's 9...Ne8 is already (too?) risky."
++ The elder 9...Nh5 caused problems in correspondence as well as over the board,
that is why Nefedov and others turned to 9...Ne8.
Kasparov suffered a loss against Kramnik and gave up on the King's Indian Defence
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070932 

 

You are very, very bad at guessing.

Avatar of najdorf96

indeed. This IS the first time I totally agree with all of IM pfren's comments. Plainly stated, to the point and well articulated in his own (in-your-face) infamous style ✍️👏🏼

Avatar of MatthewFreitag

I think at the very top level certain formerly popular openings are considered sketchy, like the Benoni or the KID, due to engine analysis.

I think "refuted" is a strong word for what's been done to those openings. For me, refutations give decisive advantages. 

Avatar of gabslmfao

when i put my dutch defense game into the lichess analysis it instantly marked my first move as an inaccuracy lol

Avatar of darkunorthodox88

opening evals are a bit like orbits. ultimately, a line is either drawn or loss and where that happens is tricky. 1+ in half of positions is defensible two is almost always lost (with opposite bishop shenanigans being the only main exception) and 1.5 is usually the threshold between lost and drawn.
what this means is that in a line an engine doesnt like (say a 1.3) your job is to figure out how treacherous the road to equality really is Sometimes, it is still a draw but your error margin is too low or maybe you have to prepare deep lines against too many viable plans to survive .
The name of the game these days isnt so much whats best although that still matters a lot, but what you can get away with and the set of problems strong opposition can throw at you. engines have opened too many possibilities for kasparov style purism to hold but many openings present too many problems to be played frequently. 
take something like the Chigorin. Even if one computer approved refutation didnt exist, it is such a hard opening to play because white has so many viable plans with a nagging advantage that black just needs to know what to do agaisnt, and white can easily find a novelty and throw you off your prep. Most GM's simply woudnt bother with it, and even those that do would save it for a must win game as one choice among many

Avatar of darkunorthodox88
IMKeto wrote:

Well as soon as humans start playing 3900 rated humans. And as soon as those 3900 rated humans can memorize all lines of an opening then this will matter.

not really, if i know you play x opening, i just need to memorize enough to refute your best play

Avatar of crazedrat1000

The dragon hasn't been refuted. It's been made alot more difficult to play... black often ends up defending a slightly worse endgame, but it's not been refuted. But the lines are also just very sharp for black - there are many different directions white can take the game, and you often wind up in positions where if you don't play perfectly you're just alot worse, at least according to the engine.

And yet... statistically black is still performing very well on lichess in the yugoslav. Probably it's because black usually focuses so much on the yugoslav attack theory, knowing it's the only real challenge to the dragon, so black is just outplaying the opponent consistently. And there's still a lot of complexity in the positions. Goes to show there's alot that must go into assessing a line. Still it is generally avoided at GM level these days.