Korchnoi and the French Defence

 

And even if you meant 2015 onward, meaning including 2015, he had 4 draws in 2015, so the "3 games above .500" record remains.

 

Nexxxxxxxxxxxxt?

You said if I count games before 2015.  Therefore, I did not count games before 2015, and your manipulation on Statistics backfired.

 

Everybody will have a stretch somewhere that their record is bad.  Your sample size is too small.  He was 1 game below .500 (3 wins, 4 losses) in 13 games.  The laws of statistics say you need a sample size of at least 30 to have viable statistics.

 

Try again!  You will not win this one!

 

Oh, and cherry picking is not viable statistics either.  There is the argument against old data.  So if anything, the last 5 or 10 years, or however many years it takes to get his last 30 games, might be more viable than overall.  But again, that is even better than his overall record!

And in the last two years? And honestly, you’re basing your entire argument on the play of one second-tier super GM when practically nobody else plays it? Nepo got spanked in the French at the WCC and gave up on it. You almost never see it. Seriously, I never said it was bad, I said it was suboptimal. Do you really think that if it were so wonderful that it wouldn’t be played more? It’s presumptively disadvantageous. If people don’t play it, there must be a reason. These things don’t happen by chance.

Every opening is presumputively disadvantageous for Black.  White goes first dude!  The Sicilian is a disadvantage for Black, the Caro-Kann is a disadvantage for Black, 1...e5 is a disadvantage for Black, and so is the French.

 

You just hate the French and cannot accept the facts!

I absolutely hate and despise the Grunfeld.  Does that mean I should go around spouting lies about the Grunfeld?  The fact that I do not do that ought to say something!

 

1...e5, 1...c5, 1...e6, and 1...c6 are all fully viable responses to 1.e4.  The other 16 responses are weaker at varying levels, like 1...h5 is worse than 1...Nc6.

 

All 4 of those openings lead to a draw with best play from both sides, and a draw is a draw is a draw!  There is no "but the Sicilian leads to a better draw than the French" bull(bleep).  It either is sound, meaning it draws with best play, or it is not sound, meaning you likely lose with best play.  Maybe the French has less room for error.  Would you find 24...a5 in post 44?  It is the only move!  Does not make it any less sound or in any way dubious.  It only takes 1 solution to draw the position!  You do not get style points for finding 5 different ways to force the draw!

ThrillerFan wrote: Every opening is presumputively disadvantageous for Black.  White goes first dude!  The Sicilian is a disadvantage for Black, the Caro-Kann is a disadvantage for Black, 1...e5 is a disadvantage for Black, and so is the French.

 

You just hate the French and cannot accept the facts!

I absolutely hate and despise the Grunfeld.  Does that mean I should go around spouting lies about the Grunfeld?  The fact that I do not do that ought to say something!

 

1...e5, 1...c5, 1...e6, and 1...c6 are all fully viable responses to 1.e4.  The other 16 responses are weaker at varying levels, like 1...h5 is worse than 1...Nc6.

 

All 4 of those openings lead to a draw with best play from both sides, and a draw is a draw is a draw!  There is no "but the Sicilian leads to a better draw than the French" bull(bleep).  It either is sound, meaning it draws with best play, or it is not sound, meaning you likely lose with best play.  Maybe the French has less room for error.  Would you find 24...a5 in post 44?  It is the only move!  Does not make it any less sound or in any way dubious.  It only takes 1 solution to draw the position!  You do not get style points for finding 5 different ways to force the draw!
No, that is not what sound or unsound means. Unsound doesn't mean you lose with best play. If that were the case every first move by black would be considered sound as there is pretty well certainly no way white can force mate from it. That's not what sound means.  

"Maybe the French has less room for error."  

Yes it has less room for error - that's the entire point of comparing openings - which has less room for error. Which is easiest to play. There is literally no other way saying one opening is better or worse than another. As above - if you play 1. ...f6 then it's still a draw for black, but you would have to work your a.ss off the whole game to scrape the draw. 

 

No, that is not what sound or unsound means. Unsound doesn't mean you lose with best play. If that were the case every first move by black would be considered sound as there is pretty well certainly no way white can force mate from it. That's not what sound means.  

"Maybe the French has less room for error."  

Yes it has less room for error - that's the entire point of comparing openings - which has less room for error. Which is easiest to play. There is literally no other way saying one opening is better or worse than another. As above - if you play 1. ...f6 then it's still a draw for black, but you would have to work your a.ss off the whole game to scrape the draw. 

 

I don’t hate the French! Hell, I play the French!!! I play it because it’s rarely played at my level and I rely upon learning theory in order to compensate for my fifth-grade calculation skills.

And your argument makes no sense. Saying that all openings as black are suboptimal is not a rejoinder. I simply answer “duh”. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t gradations. People play what gives them the best winning chances based on computers crunching for hours in particular positions and the more these computers crunch, the less they like the French.

And flexing your knowledge about lines in the French is also not a rejoinder. You have yet to deny that computers dislike it, that top players overwhelmingly avoid it, and that you’re relying on the choices of one player out of all super GMs to support your argument that it’s just peachy. Your arguments are as weak as my chess rating.

Nepo played the French twice in Candidates and did not lose to MVL due to the opening. He would have been fine had he not played 18... c4 and instead traded rooks. By playing c4, he closed the position and allowed MVL all the fun on the King Side. Instead, if he traded Rxb1 Rxb1 then followed up by Qb6, then the position is equal. Blacks knights are ready to come out, and for the moment, white cannot castle. In the other game, the entire game was equal, but white was walking on a thin path. Plus, Giri already showed how to defuse the line in his book. Instead of b6 to Rb1, he shows Nbc6, and after 10.Qg4, Rg8. If Bd3, then c4, Bh7, Nxe5, Qg3, Nd3+, cxd3, a trade of queens, then Rh7, and black gets his material back with an equal endgame. 

Isn't it like +2 after f6? 

ThrillerFan: Why waste time arguing with a 1300 troll?

 

French defence is completely fine for 99.99% of players.

Why anyone would argue for the 00.01% is beyond me.

Comes across as clownshoes on this forum when scrubs argue this perspective.

@winawer. Can’t you basically argue that no game at the highest levels is lost because of the opening though? All the players look for some surprise novelty after some number of moves, and that those novelties tend to be found in some openings rather than others. It’s basically an arms race at the highest level and they all look for the tiniest of advantages and imbalances to exploit. Given the stakes, it’s almost a given that openings are gone over with a fine-toothed comb, including the French. Perhaps there are surprises to be found in the French, but it’s already one of the most analyzed openings out there.

The h4 line has only become popular in recent times and does not have that much analysis compared to Qg4, a4, and Nf3

@problem - I merely stated the objective fact that it’s not played at the highest levels and does badly at computer tournaments. I also stated that it was a perfectly good opening for practically anyone. For these simple objective truths, I was mocked for my lack of chess skills, as if being better at chess makes you an automatic authority on what is and isn’t played and why.

Nobody here disagrees over whether or not it’s perfectly fine amongst the bottom not 99.99% of players, but rather the bottom 99.999999% percent of players. I like it. I play it. But that doesn’t mean it’s the best opening ever.

     Openings rise and fall in popularity again and again over time. The London System was briefly popular after its introduction, then faded to obscurity for decades until its recent revival. Open games, particularly King's Gambit and Evans' Gambit, were all the rage in the Romantic era, then the development of positional principles by Steinitz and Tarrasch ushered in a generation where closed openings predominated. The French was played more frequently when Botvinnik vs Smyslov and Karpov vs Korchnoi matches featured many French games. When a couple of top players decide to use it because it has been rare for awhile and they feel their opponents will be less prepared, it will become fashionable again. , as with most other openings.

     At super-GM level, few players can rely on one opening or defense. This would be akin to a football coach sending his game plan to the opposition, making their preparation much easier and more effective. Top level competitions are dominated by the "play to win as white, play to hold the draw as black" mentality. The players are professionals, and more prize money goes to the top half of the field, meaning that scoring 50% as black and 60% as white pays off financially. Leaving yourself open to being put into double-edged games such as the Winawer poisoned pawn variation or the Alekhine-Chatard attack against the world's strongest players entails greater risk. And when black feels they MUST go for a win, no one wants to get into the French exchange or some lines of the advance or Tarrasch variations that white can force the game into.

     As for what computers do, it is impossible for humans use the same methods. And who knows what the computers will find with another ten years' improvement.

@lasker - I am not a troll. Trolls argue to rile people up for no reason. I was just made a couple of innocent observations and was immediately attacked. I defended myself. That’s not trolling, and dismissing what I’m saying as trolling is rude and offensive. My arguments are measured and verifiable. It’s not as if I was saying “the French is the worst opening ever and you suck for thinking it isn’t”!

That’s what trolls say.

@mpaetz - actually what computers think is vitally important. Obviously humans can’t play like computers, but players use computer-generated lines to try to get them to an advantageous middle or endgame. The recent trend to push outside pawns is 100% due to the way neural networks play chess. People can’t play like them, but they look to them for cues.

Give some credit to humanity. a4 and h4 were moves long before computers. 

Nikki--As humans can't use the same calculation technique computers employ, achieving a position that a computer considers favorable won't help much. Their evaluations pre-suppose that both sides will continue to play the "best" moves throughout the examined lines. As this will not happen in a human game, their conclusions are less valid for our games. Further, who can say what the computers' choice is? Different programs reach different conclusions. Programs and hardware continue to improve making tomorrow's computer preferences undeterminable today. And advances in artificial intelligence may well lead future computers to evaluate things very differently.

@winawer - In no way did I say it was a new idea, I said it became a trend because neural networks have used it to great effect. Leela used it so successfully that the Stockfish team literally took steps to specifically guard against the strategy.