French Players: Learn to embrace the Exchange Variation!

yeah, I shouldn't have bitten after all. I give up.

However, to rebut, on the other hand, we should consider, as a counter point, that you're not taking your medication.

What good is making points if you ignore them?

Not that I feel slighted for the actual efforts I made.  There are so many saying the same thing I can understand picking which you'll respond to.

Why the long absence from the forums by the way?  Maybe I'm cynical, or just plain ignorant, but I start to think things like people go off their meds.

Iron tiger is correct. If you disagree you dont understand the word objective.

Idiot that trys to be overly technical (which is dumb in the first place) but are not smart enough to do so

Sorry, it's impossible to take you seriously.  You're either acting stupid or it's not an act.

OP,

Yes, I have learned to embrace the Exchange variation. However, this is because I now use moves that unbalance the position. I think my results are probably not good as there were with the symmetrical positions. However, I am happy playing it, which is good because at my lowish level I still get to play it quite frequently.

Sorry about the sarcasm. I thought better and edited it, but you quoted the mean version first. When authors say the exchange gives Black equality on move 3 it has to do with the selection of the line which is equal. It's that crossroads where the position changes so it's that move they point to.

It's just a semantic argument we're having here and it is silly. When most chess players use the word "advantage" it means something more real than what you're talking about. You're trying to define it to mean something even less than what most chess players would call an "edge." Not only will this make people misunderstand you when you do this but also these definition are, IMO, less useful than the traditional ones because in a lot of positions having the move does give White an advantage. That's a more useful distinction to draw.

Fiveofswords, if you genuinely want a conversation you will want to check out my post #75. If you want your trivial point that white has an almost pointless .02 advantage in the french exchange, fine, although I doubt this was your original intention and are probably merely trying to make it appear that way.

But you certainly claimed other things. You say white's advantage in the exchange variation can be compared to that of other main lines, which is why you should check out my post #75 for another perspective.

Now, carnivalia, let's imagine a position where one side is up a pawn (we'll say white) but the position is still drawn. If we also add better piece activity for white, it becomes winning. In virtue of what is it the case that it became winning? If white was not originally up a pawn, then having better piece activity probably wouldn't have been enough to win. Given that what makes the difference is the extra pawn, obviously the pawn had to have value, otherwise the result between the pawn up position with better piece activity would have to be identical to the position with piece activity and even material. But it's not. If an extra pawn not being enough to win in itself is supposed to prove that the advantage of having it is an illusion (or 0), how is it that when you add "0" to some positions that are drawn, they become winning? That argument leads to a contradiction.

So there is a meaningful, objective sense in which this extra pawn is a constituent of a winning advantage, even if in itself it may not be enough to win. You can't just ignore that.

Advantages don't have to change a result to be an advantage. They contribute to a change in a result, and we can confirm this empirically like I just did.

"I never said that white has as much of an advantage in the exchange as 3 Nc3 or 3 Nd2"

Post #46 implies something to this effect. You seem to say that white does have as much advantage in the exchange as 3 Nd2, just that practically it's easier for black or something.

"WIth perfect play, all the lines should be drawn so there is no such thing as an advantage at all with perfect play. Only result. Assuming perfect play, speaking of advantage is merely inconsistent."

I argue against this in my previous post. But even if you don't buy my argument... I don't see the problem with discussing a "practical advantage" then. If rook + bishop vs rook is merely a "practical advantage," fine, we'll use your terms -- this kind of advantage was all theoreticians cared about anyway... what else do we talk about? And surely as a good chess player you would have known the way in which chess players use the term "advantage." I mean, the term "prophylaxis" is actually a medical thing, we only use that metaphorically with chess, but that's understood.

not a chance in hell

you are all dying and your server is getting bombed,,,thats a fact

"from some omniscient perfect play perspective, im sure that 3 ed and 3 nd2 are identical. They both result in a draw. From a practical standpoint, you will probably keep an advantage mroe often with 3 nd2."

Once more, I have argued against the notion that if a position leads to a draw, therefore no one has an advantage, even from an "omniscient" perspective. An advantage isn't defined as "necessarily leading to a win" -- to have more mobility doesn't guarantee a damn thing, it just means you have more mobility. Although, if I have nothing else to go by, it's a better bet to use that information to say that the side with more mobility has a winning position, everything else being equal, than it is to say the side with less mobility has a winning position (even though I could be wrong and the position is drawn). And if we tested many positions like this, with one perfect computer against another, probably some would turn out to be forced draws, some a win for the side with more mobility, and fewer a win for the side with less mobility (maybe we misunderstood something about the position in those rare cases).

In virtue of what is this the case? In virtue of something, certainly not nothing. Of course, any of these positions were won, drawn, or lost independent of what we thought -- but how particular features of a position allow us to accurately guess the evaluation suggests that those features are constituents of a winning position to a greater extent than others. That is objective. A perfect computer does not have to know such things to play perfect chess; that's irrelevant. That doesn't mean advantages don't exist, it just means they aren't necessary to know if you can calculate the entire game.

Anyway, if you define "objective advantage" as "easier for one side to win, disregarding psychology" -- so for example, a symmetrical position with white to move -- then I am saying that I think the exchange variation yields less of an objective advantage than other main lines of the french, and to a non-trivial degree.

"If anyone wants to actually dispute me and try making an argument that being the person to move in a position that is clearly not zugzwang does not confer an advantage...lets hear it"

Haha, so basically, we must disprove the statement that "In every position, except the positions where to have the move is not advantageous, to have the move is advantageous."

Yeah it takes someone really clever to come up with a perfect way to always be right: state a tautology!

Equal doesn't mean its drawn. Black can play for the win

Get a book on the French or something, they usually give you ways to make the game more exciting

Hey man, if we are just discussing tautologies, we have no argument here :)

Still like I said, you made a number of different claims. So, is your position that other main line french's generally yield a better "practical" advantage than the exchange variation, again in the way you have defined it?

And of course I disputed the claim that objective advantages can't exist if they don't change the result, or something to that effect. I think that it's one thing to say that one side has a slight advantage, and another to say that it will actually change the outcome, even from an omnisicent perspective.

Ok... you do understand, though, that if you use the term "advantage" in a way that every chess player here and almost everywhere is used to using differently, you will cause confusion?

In some reversed openings, having the move is a disadvantage.  "Mathematics" of information theory.  Obvious to anyone with a brain.  All you do is ad hominem me you goatee-looking-to-the-right fools.  If you shaved your faces you might have a point.  Notice there is no advantage, only the result... which is a draw, which further proves my point.  By the way I'm using ad hominem the way everyone uses it... which is sophomorically, incorrectly, and when I'm feeling vulnerable.

Reminds me of some joke annotations making fun of hypermodern theory.  About how white doesn't play e4 so he can painfully prepare it for 20 moves... and in the end concluded something like best play would be Nf3 Nf6 Ng1 Nf8 etc and a draw.

Anyway, my point was that having the move is not intrinsically good even in the opening.  You can't just say it's so obvious isn't not worth talking about.  In some positions you can give your opponent 2 or 3 moves and it doesn't change the evaluation or even the difficulty to play (ok, not on move 3, but I hope you understand the point I'm making).

Would I mind passing?  Not at all.  For a practical advantage is it favorable to pass?  IMO the position is level in any case.  Maybe some French aficionado would say best play would be pass-pass-pass draw.

"Elubas, I am calling fiveofswords out.   (inside joke)"

Indeed you are calling him out ;)