How do I counter the Smith-Morra Gambit?

No...all of them because e5 can be forced, by the same way with white playing Bf4. He said d6 and e6 was winning for white anyways....so if you play d6 then you shouldnt play e6 or e5. If you play e6, then dont play d6 after that.

What precise lines are you referring to?

It depends on the concrete lines, but the pattern is bad, yes.

Must be those "weak" players at it again...

5...a6 6 f4 e5 7 Nf3 Qc7...horrible ...Ian Nepomniachtchi(2717) played it and lost. Of course....had he read secret chess, he would have recognized it. SF9, Houdini, Komodo all say 6...e5....but  those progams cant compete with secret chess obviously.

It's a bit funny to me that you would think Anand would spend much time on the Morra against an IM who wrote a book on the opening. I'm sure Esserman had to greatly cull his analysis in the book for readability. The hours he spent on that opening must be staggering. His claim to fame is beating Van Wely in 26 moves with the Morra. A world class player has little motivation to try to find a refutation to the Morra or challenge a specialist in such an obscure line at top level.

You're probably more likely to find a serious challenge to the Morra from players at 2200-2650 level. For instance, GM Ivan Salgado found inspiration from the game Mosadeghpour,M (2474)-Ghaem Maghami,E (2577), Teheran 2016 for his presentation on Anti-Sicilians. Berg,E (2549)-Khairullin,I (2651), Minsk 2014 is another game I found in the same variation with better play for White. At this level, they play lower rated players more often in open tournaments, so they may be more likely to face the Morra, but still I think this is a rare occurrence above 2200 level. Another potential motivation is coaching for amateurs who face the Morra, but again the motivation to find a refutation is not too high when there are simple shortcuts to avoid complicated variations for the occasional encounter of a rare sideline.

This is a very solid line for Black, but I could not find any advantage against 13.Na4:

This is almost equal.

The central backward pawn on d6 is STILL worth a very large penalty, half a pawn or so, compared to the usual 1/4th of a pawn penalty for the average backward pawn, but many factors compensate:

- the knight on b3 and pawn on e4 are under attack

- black's pieces are more centrally placed, the knight on b3 is misplaced somewhat

- the white knigth on c3 blocks the c2 pawn(that is why the Maroczy is better)

- most importantly, black has sufficient overcontrol over the d5 square, so almost certainly landing a white piece there will be met by a capture, white will recapture with a pawn and the hole will be stuffed

So that, it really depends on the particular position.

The d6 central backward pawn though is still very weak.

OK, enough for today.

This is similar to Salgado's treatment with one slight modification:

Eh? Other factors compensate? You know what that means....

Extra! Extra! Read all about it....REVOLUTIONARY NEWS...."Other factors compensate" per Lyudmil...but he has to OK it first. Seems secret of chess book is incomplete? Is there a eval table of every line that "other factors compensate"? Or a list of positions where other factors compensate for every pawn structure?

 note how tough it is to play e5 and to take control of the "weak" d6 square it is

Please explain to me how d6 is "very weak" when it is well defended by the e7 Bishop, and White has no hope, in the near future of attacking it with a minor piece.

NO.

This thread is not about Tsvetkov. It's about the Morra. I didn't say anything about him in my response to you, other than quote your response to him. I never saw him claim a win before your response, just an advantage. An advantage is not equal to an "easy win" by any normal usage of the word in chess analysis. Even if he claims a win, I don't really care. This comes across as a stupid distraction to discredit me by a weak association.

The Morra is not an easy opening to refute, unless you consider equality a "refutation". I have worked many hours on the opening and I am never completely satisfied with the analysis, since attempts at an advantage can become very complex, unclear, and hard to remember. If Black is too ambitious, his position often collapses even when the engines are initially optimistic. Esserman has spent a great deal of time on the opening and is probably one of the world's leading experts on the opening. He has an excellent book on the subject. If Anand entered the Morra, he would be entering Esserman's game into murky territory where he easily could fall into deeply prepared analysis. Frankly, I don't know how you are reading my response otherwise.

???

Rogozenko, in agreement with many other strong players, discussed the practical problems of accepting the gambit in his Anti-Sicilian book over a decade ago. The simplest solution is to kill two birds with one stone using 3...Nf6 transposing to the 2...Nf6 Alapin mainline, as YOU YOURSELF stated.

PLEASE stop strawmanning my arguments before using your favorite copy-and-paste response:

"Everything you say is extremely dubious and doubtful at best."

I have made specific arguments and variations to justify my opinion on the Morra, an opinion I formed well before I knew about Tsvetkov, while it is not even clear that you bothered to read past my first sentence. I really don't see what is controversial about my opinion, but at least get it right. I actually agree with some things you write until you enter "Tsvetkov mode". Then you look a bit silly, to my eyes at least.

The important thing is I am able to find moves you are unable to.

That is what matters.

90% of opening lines that were played 100 years ago and considered as best and most popular are already not played nowadays.

Opening theory changes a lot, no one can claim the opposite.

You can't possibly claim that chess resources can advance even close to as much in the next 100 years than they did in the previous 100.

On the topic of Tsvetkov, I think you are strawmanning his arguments as well when he tends to overstate his claims. He has stated earlier in another thread that he intentionally does this in response to the attacks, so it is a vicious cycle we have all seen many times. I don't understand why you perpetually feed into this, but it's clear that you won't stop.

I see his games as examples, as you would see in any openings book to advocate for one side. I don't interpret this as a claim to objective truth on the best play, just an example of Black's potential and I take it as such. I don't think English is his first language either, so I think attacking his diction is not the most charitable thing to do. By the way, I already pointed out a line of his where I think White can equalize, but this does not change that it is a quality line nonetheless.

When you wrote:

"You believe you know more than Anand?"

I actually thought that was funny, because top level players are pragmatic and this says very little about the objective truth of the opening. Anand has almost zero motivation to give a passing thought on the Morra in his opening preparation. That could change if 2600+ players suddenly started playing it on a regular basis, but this seems highly unlikely to me. That's why I thought that this kind of name dropping was inappropriate to the discussion, other than to emphasize the validity and acceptance of declining the gambit you mentioned earlier. Now you can argue that this is evidence that a refutation of the Morra is nontrivial and I would certainly agree with this; however, I think you are using this as a strawman to attack Tsvetkov when he made no claim to a trivial refutation. Yes, he did say "blunder" and provide optimistic lines for Black, but as far as I am aware, nowhere did he claim that refuting the Morra would be a trivial task without engine assistance. When he said, "I bet Anand has not analysed that in-depth.", this is a very plausible view in my opinion based on the arguments I stated earlier (lack of motivation and pragmatism). Top players often rely on seconds to do the dirty work and often they will refer to games from relatively unknown players in correspondence chess who have spent many hours on opening analysis. You don't need to be a top player to have quality analysis, so name dropping like this is a bit funny to me in modern chess culture, especially in a minor sideline like the Morra that is almost never discussed at 2700+ level.

You've missed the point, I think. 

If the Smith-Morra were as horrible as LT says, Anand would've taken out an hour to prepare 3...dc3 against Esserman. The fact that he went for the pragmatic approach means that Black isn't obviously better, nor winning after 3...dc3, otherwise he'd have just done his homework and taken an easy win.

I don't know.

I looked into it very carefully, and it is a very complicated tactical play in almost all variations, but black gets on top almost always.

One possible line after Na4 is this one, Nh4, to displace the bishop, followed by Bd8, guarding the b6 square.

SF reaches 50-60cps black edge.

A pawn more is a pawn more.

I don't know if that is sufficient for a win though.

As said, very complicated tactically, you need days to analyse it, but black will always retain a clear edge.

Every chess position is the sum total of all evaluation features present.

If you don't understand that, you understand nothing.

The hole in front of the pawn is the bigger weakness, the d5 square, and not the d6 backward pawn itself.

Excellent post, especially the first part of it.

I mentioned a backward pawn on d6, not a weak square.

A backward pawn on d6 is equivalent to a hole/weak square on d5, right?

If the d6 pawn is backward, the d5 square is weak.

But, PLEASE NOTE well: weak squares are non-quantifiable, mostly, weak pawns are, so using the backward pawn terminology is definitely the much better approach.

I have been doing this for ages: backward pawns, weak squares, backward pawns, weak squares, what is the best way to define them, and thought about that in all the 100 000 or so games in later years I have browsed/analysed, so your assumptions I no know nothing about weak squares is simply hilarious.

It is the backward pawn that matters: you know the d5 square is a hole, and there IS an enemy pawn in front. That is the definition of a hole par excellence.

How will you define a weak square, if you don't know if there is an enemy pawn in front or not?

If the d6 pawn is not there, the d5 square is already not so weak, as the file will be open and different pieces could attack it.

No immobile pawn in front too.

So please, don't make any silly assumptions: I have thought about that day and night.