opens up database*
wow, im playing 1.na3 from now on! 15% higher win rate than 1.e4 and d4!
Then im playing 1...g6. That has a 100% rate for black! Take that Mr. NM!
I just don't play! By not doing what my opponent wants me to do, I've won the psychological battle. 100% winrate.
Im a huge user of the Kings Indian Defence, but I find Im always fighting an uphill battle when using it. So today I went to chessopenings.com and looked at the KID and was startled to learn that black has a 25% win rate with this opening, white with 36% and draws at 38%.
My question is: Why would anyone ever play an opening with such a ridiculously low rate of success?
It's not that bad. In sharp positions people make mistakes. Why do people play 1.f4? Obviously not the "best", but many GMs have played it before! Even the famed double bishop sacrifice came from a 1.f4 game.
I don't play it, but I fear it.
to analyze with a database effectively you need to be doing a lot of things
1. make sure you have enough games to draw conclusions,i woudnt put too much trust on anything with less than 50 games and virtually none if 10 or ess
2. You must filter by rating, 2200 vs 2200 is a good starting point, but you can be pickier and raise the minimium although beware of 1
3. You may want to filter by date, if an opening is or was very popular 200 years, ago you may get outdated results counted. I woudnt want games of anderseen and Blackburne be part of the score in analyzing openings.
4. You must look deeper at all the lines. an opening can say it has a 65% win rate at turn X and then at X+2 once you remove some welll known trap, it could drop to 48%. (e.g look at some database lines on the alekhine defense you will see stuff like that). Or maybe your line may score badly in general but a specific sideline scores great.
5. As already mentioned you must count draws, otherwise you get ridiculous results. the QID in the g3 lines scores like 19% win rate with black! but a very impressive draw rate. This is important since a lot of masters play it as a drawing weapon or a relatively risk free game.
6. Even if all the above is noticed, what makes you think database statistics will tell you anything about the objectivity of a position?
"black has a 25% win rate with this opening, white with 36% and draws at 38%."
Thats 44% overall scoring. There's 1% missing in ur numbers so it's maybe 44.5%ish. The average of all games is about 45%ish I believe, so that's not outrageously low or anything, it's normal.
Wow I cannot believe a NM replied to my thread and did not even answer my question
Is this what the chess community is like lol
funny you say this, when i first joined here but before formally putting my title into my account, people would question my analysis and dismiss it, but now that i got the red glitter, its a combination of being held to some high standard of moral integrity and contempt being reminded im not that good lol.
to analyze with a database effectively you need to be doing a lot of things
1. make sure you have enough games to draw conclusions,i woudnt put too much trust on anything with less than 50 games and virtually none if 10 or ess
2. You must filter by rating, 2200 vs 2200 is a good starting point, but you can be pickier and raise the minimium although beware of 1
3. You may want to filter by date, if an opening is or was very popular 200 years, ago you may get outdated results counted. I woudnt want games of anderseen and Blackburne be part of the score in analyzing openings.
4. You must look deeper at all the lines. an opening can say it has a 65% win rate at turn X and then at X+2 once you remove some welll known trap, it could drop to 48%. (e.g look at some database lines on the alekhine defense you will see stuff like that). Or maybe your line may score badly in general but a specific sideline scores great.
5. As already mentioned you must count draws, otherwise you get ridiculous results. the QID in the g3 lines scores like 19% win rate with black! but a very impressive draw rate. This is important since a lot of masters play it as a drawing weapon or a relatively risk free game.
6. Even if all the above is noticed, what makes you think database statistics will tell you anything about the objectivity of a position?
You also need to back solve lines. There may have been a line where the win rate for black is 52% but it hasn't been played in 4 years. It now becomes your job to learn and understand why black no longer plays a line with a 52% win rate. What you will find is that white found an improvement.
Wow I cannot believe a NM replied to my thread and did not even answer my question
Is this what the chess community is like lol
funny you say this, when i first joined here but before formally putting my title into my account, people would question my analysis and dismiss it, but now that i got the red glitter, its a combination of being held to some high standard of moral integrity and contempt being reminded im not that good lol.
And completely ignoring the fact that you answered the OP's question.
Just saying...
to analyze with a database effectively you need to be doing a lot of things
1. make sure you have enough games to draw conclusions,i woudnt put too much trust on anything with less than 50 games and virtually none if 10 or ess
2. You must filter by rating, 2200 vs 2200 is a good starting point, but you can be pickier and raise the minimium although beware of 1
3. You may want to filter by date, if an opening is or was very popular 200 years, ago you may get outdated results counted. I woudnt want games of anderseen and Blackburne be part of the score in analyzing openings.
4. You must look deeper at all the lines. an opening can say it has a 65% win rate at turn X and then at X+2 once you remove some welll known trap, it could drop to 48%. (e.g look at some database lines on the alekhine defense you will see stuff like that). Or maybe your line may score badly in general but a specific sideline scores great.
5. As already mentioned you must count draws, otherwise you get ridiculous results. the QID in the g3 lines scores like 19% win rate with black! but a very impressive draw rate. This is important since a lot of masters play it as a drawing weapon or a relatively risk free game.
6. Even if all the above is noticed, what makes you think database statistics will tell you anything about the objectivity of a position?
To add to his number 4 item along with recency bias, I myself have been drifting away from the Kings Indian not because of some trap or one great line, but rather, one really big problem line!
The main line Classical with 10.Be3 and 13.Rc1 has been causing major problems for Black. 13...Ng6, 13...a6, and 13...Rf6 all give Black insufficient defense to equalize. Don't believe me? Try playing Black after 13.Rc1 in correspondence. The truth can often be found in correspondence more than it can be found over the board!
I thought it was a good answer.
Aside from patzers, no strong player has ever played the Kings Indian. Look it up
Aside from patzers, no strong player has ever played the Kings Indian. Look it up
... Hikaru Nakamura??
Actually, you are reading it all wrong! You do not base the validity of an opening on percent of wins. It is percent of points scored. You calculate that by adding the percentage of wins for the side you are calculating, and adding half the draw percentage to that. So if an opening has 36% wins for White, 38% draws, and 25% wins for Black, first off, this does not add to 100. You must have rounding errors. Let's say, hypothetically, that White scores 36.3%, 38.4% are draws, and 25.3% are wins for Black. Only now does what you have total 100%.
To determine Black's score, you take his win percentage and add half the draw percentage, or 25.3 + (0.5 × 38.4) = 25.3 + 19.2 = 44.5 Percent. This means a 55.5 Percent score for White, which is indeed 36.3 + 19.2.
Draws count, not just wins! You get half a point for a draw. If you score 2 wins as Black, 3 losses, and 15 draws, in 20 games. You did not score 10%. White did not score 15%. You scored 47.5% and White scored 52.5%
2 wins, 3 losses, and 15 draws is a FAR BETTER score than 6 wins and 14 losses (30% - FAR WORSE despite triple the number of wins!)
So the fact that a lot of the draws are prearranged should count? There are like 50 pages of less than 20 move games...with several hundred being like 5 or 6 move draws. Not to mention the #moves >70....these thousands should count too towards the opening?
Actually, you are reading it all wrong! You do not base the validity of an opening on percent of wins. It is percent of points scored. You calculate that by adding the percentage of wins for the side you are calculating, and adding half the draw percentage to that. So if an opening has 36% wins for White, 38% draws, and 25% wins for Black, first off, this does not add to 100. You must have rounding errors. Let's say, hypothetically, that White scores 36.3%, 38.4% are draws, and 25.3% are wins for Black. Only now does what you have total 100%.
To determine Black's score, you take his win percentage and add half the draw percentage, or 25.3 + (0.5 × 38.4) = 25.3 + 19.2 = 44.5 Percent. This means a 55.5 Percent score for White, which is indeed 36.3 + 19.2.
Draws count, not just wins! You get half a point for a draw. If you score 2 wins as Black, 3 losses, and 15 draws, in 20 games. You did not score 10%. White did not score 15%. You scored 47.5% and White scored 52.5%
2 wins, 3 losses, and 15 draws is a FAR BETTER score than 6 wins and 14 losses (30% - FAR WORSE despite triple the number of wins!)
So the fact that a lot of the draws are prearranged should count? There are like 50 pages of less than 20 move games...with several hundred being like 5 or 6 move draws. Not to mention the #moves >70....these thousands should count too towards the opening?
They played the opening. 🙃
Aside from patzers, no strong player has ever played the Kings Indian. Look it up
I did..Amin Bassem @ 45 times...26% white vs 33% black. Torches below rating, draw at rating, loses above rating. If it were as bad as you say, he would be doing worse.
This has been a (failed) test of the Sarcasm Detection System!
Fischer played the King's Indian, Kasparov played the Kings Indian, Geller played it. Nakamura played it
I never said I was playing it right? I'm looking at legitimate data compiled from 4000 professional games from 1901-2020 and the KID has a 25% win rate lol
This account is my account I play on my phone/at work so theres a pretty fair amount of simple blunders
If you look at a bigger database that has over 1,000,000 games on it, you'll find that the win rate for Black in the King's Indian Defense is 28.5% (not counting draws). Interestingly enough, the total win rate for Black after 1. d4 (all defenses, including 1. ... d5, 1. ... Nf6, 1. ... e6, 1. ... f5, etc) is 28.5%.
opens up database*
wow, im playing 1.na3 from now on! 15% higher win rate than 1.e4 and d4!
Then im playing 1...g6. That has a 100% rate for black! Take that Mr. NM!
i love the fact you mentioned this, i was gonna say exactly that! XD