Historically popular openings that were revealed to be bad later by the engine

Good thread...

I just watched an interview with Magnus Carlsen where he was stated the main lines of historically popular opening, most now lead to a draws. Sometime back, I listen to a pod cast where the World Correspondence Chess Champion said they now are only using 4 openings... The top correspondence guys use serious computers, running the strongest chess engines... and all 4 openings are now leading to a draws. (all others lead to a loss)

OTB.... If anything... Openings that where once thought to be inferior... because of the rise of chess engines, look to be less inferior and playable OTB

The top 100 players in the world... the guys rated 2675 and up... (side note: Due to the Ukrainian War.. a 3rd of them are missing from the world stage, being Russian... are banned for political reasons) all of them have photographic memories.

They can recall the computer lines... Carlsen's photographic memory is legendary... he once stated he can recall 10,000 games. Side comment: when is he actually playing? , is it him..... or he's making moves based on page 78 of the latest evaluation of the Berlin defense in the Ruy lopez?

That goes for all the elites...

And... IMO why it's frak'in stupid to make your opening repertoire based on what these elites are using. 

There's one part of Kasparov's book on the Sicilian Keres' attack where according to the computer white starts off at move 13 with +1.1, then after Kasparov gives white's only move (no variations given) he is 0.9, then Kasparov gives white's only move 14 and he falls all the way down to 0.0 by computer evaluation, and then Kasparov gives white's only move 15 and he falls all the way to -0.5 and Kasparov concludes: "Black has fully solved his opening problems". Now obviously you can't expect a human to come up with everything a computer does, but the fact that he gives these moves without any possible variations even. These also aren't crazy moves that only a computer could find, at least they don't look like it.

It was probably a little bit arrogance and also a little bit of bluffing. He probably thought being world champion and so many moves deep into theory noone would call him out on it or even care to. Little did he know that over 30 years later all his secret mistakes would be wide open for all to see.

I'm guessing that the book was written in the late 80's to early 90's. Before 1992, the position starting at move 13 has only occurred in two games in my latest version of the Chessbase Megabase. At that time, there weren't too many people who were capable of calling him out and computers weren't near Kasparov's strength. yet.

With a lack of game references to draw upon, and no reliable way to check his analysis, Kasparov had to rely on his nearly 15+ years of experience playing the Sicilian Defense and his own analysis to evaluate the positions that he was writing about.

Frankly, he didn't do a horrible job because the alternative to whites 14th move (14.bxc3 instead of 14.Bd4+) looks to be the type of move that only a computer would consider.

Yeah, he probably thought bc3 was just wrecking white's own structure while giving black time to castle, while Bd4 discovered check looks like such an elegant move by comparison. Though it turns out that after g5 black is in some trouble, while white's castled king is safe on c1 despite the doubled pawns.

Easy King’s Gambit

The Romantic Era of Chess had many players playing the Kings Gambit because many of them truly believed it was the best way for White to play.

The Romantic Era of Chess was before the 20th century though, the King's Gambit was long gone before engines came.

In it's heyday, the KG was the best way to play, simply because people won a lot of games with it. But chess, like many other things, evolves and changes over time. So by the late 19th century, way before engines, players with the black pieces found defensive resources to neutralize white's attack. But even when engines reveal flaws in some openings, people, even top players, will still play them, simply because they're not engines. Humans will often lose their way in the complexities of the game, make some blunders, and so we have decisive results. This also accounts for the popularity of the shorter time controls; players screw up much more often in blitz and bullet. Top players routinely play dubious openings in the shorter time controls, the kind of stuff they would never play in classic chess. They're just counting on opponents making mistakes they know Stockfish would never make.

I remember back in the 90s, when Kasparov lost to the IBM computer, people were bemoaning the result and predicting the end of competitive chess. Nothing of the sort happened. Chess is more popular now than ever, even though we all know the engines can clobber us. In fact, they are a great asset for players.

A funny situation arose a few years ago. For years, some lower level players, even some GMs (are you out there, Simon?) were recommending pushing the h-pawn early on in some openings. But top level players often scoffed at the idea, calling it unsound, crazy, or worse. Then AlphaZero came along and started killing everybody with this 'unsound' pawn pushing. Soon, everybody and his uncle was pushing "Harry" up the board like crazy and winning games. So the low level 'crazy' players were right all along!

I'd say most gambit openings have been proven bad by engines. They're still effective against humans who crack under pressure though. The King's Gambit may be a dubious opening according to the engines but it's one of the best openings against humans rated below Master level IMO.

Yeah, but top players still give it a shot every now and then. Bronstein and Spassy had successes with the KG in the mid 20th century. And just a few years ago Nepo beat Svidler with it in a rapid game. Hikaru plays it too, but then again, that guy will play anything.

But I think theRonster456's point -- and he's right -- is that most of those gambits were defanged by humans long before engines came into the mix.

I can't, offhand, think of a gambit that was put out of business by engines, rather than by earlier human analysis (though perhaps there are some minor ones I'm missing). On the other hand, I can think of a couple of gambits -- the Marshall and the pawn sacrifice lines in the Catalan -- that really came into vogue once engines made clear they were fully sound.

I'm the one that made that point tlay80, in fact that other guy is trying to rebutt what I said.

And yes no gambits were exposed by computers either. If anything computer analysis shows stuff like the Dragon are still 0.0 as it finds all the resources for the perfect defence.

Whoops, sorry! Yes indeed — I was moving too fast.

I'd say the opposite trend seems to be (surprisingly) true: a lot of openings and defenses that were thought to be dubious have been proven to be playable by modern engines.

Engines have a knack for finding tactical and positional resources that we didn't know were there before ...

Now, when we look at something like the Top Chess Engine Championship, the event organizers have to manually choose riskier and riskier variations, just to avoid an avalanche of draws.

Yes, very often true. There are some lines though, that are pretty much refuted, though I'm struggling to think of one that was ever particularly popular. One I'm rather fond of that seems, alas, to be busted, is the Polugayevsky Variation of the Najdorf. Last time I played it in a daily game, I lost, and, even looking later with an engine, I couldn't figure out what I did wrong other than choosing to play the Polugayevsky.

Then there are the middle cases, of which the King's Indian is perhaps emblematic. It's not refuted, and I think a lot of people think that engines' high opinions of white's chances are inflated. But it's clear that White has a number of ways to get a position, that, without being fully winning, can make Black's life harder than it needs to be. On the other hand, at the amateur level, it remains popular as ever, and since sub-2000 players are typically out of theory by move 12-14 anyway, those engine problems doen't seem to have any serious negative effect on Black's practical chances.

Back in the 1990s, computers discovered hundreds of mistakes in opening theory. Top players were already busting popular lines back then. P
The main trend today is not so much in refuting old lines. That work has been done. Now, it is mostly in rehabilitating old lines that once were thought to be unplayable but are now recognized as playable. The early h4 against the King's Indian is just one example of this. 
Here's another example: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 a6?!/!? is now being seen even in the games of Magnus Carlsen!

The Polugayevsky looks fine to me, while flipping through it with SF 17.

Black has some challenges for a string of moves, where he has to play precisely, but once he gets over that hurdle, it seems he's in the clear.

So, unless there's something I'm missing, I believe your Polugayevsky is still alive and kicking.

The King's Gambit is one of the openings that was once considered somewhat playable but now is considered all but busted for White. White struggles to draw in practical games at the highest levels. It's still marginally playable in ICCF chess, but almost nobody would willingly defend as White.

What improvements do you have over this? The admittedly not-top-rate online version of stockfish I'm looking at is giving it +1.7 at depth 30. But maybe there's an improvement.

On my laptop, SF 17 says that 15... Qxb2 was the blunder.

Qxb2 looked fine on lower depth, but then White's eval rose to over +1 after a few minutes.

15... Rxd3, instead, seems to hold. Exchanging queens.

16. Nxe5 ...Rd4

17. fxg7 ...Bxg7

18. Nxf7 ... 0-0

I haven't looked past that, but I'm thinking Black is fine from there on out, now that he has avoided the ...Qxb2 line. Black's down a pawn, but he's got the bishop pair on an open board. He'll snag that pawn back at some point.