Smarter than a patzer?

I see many non-book opening moves as an 800 blitz player. With the help of Fritz 12 and Rybka 2.2n2, those irritating, intimidating, yet blundering moves by Black will be refuted, giving ammunition to those patzers like myself who wish to break 900.

What do these symbols mean? (+/-, -/+ )

(=) The position is about equal. (+/=) White is slightly better. (+/-) White is clearly better. (+-) White is winning. (=/+) Black is slightly better. (-/+) Black is clearly better. (-+) Black is winning.
 

All examples are taken from my blitz matches. For now, I will focus on those that begin with 1.e4.

In this first puzzle, Fritz and Rybka found two good moves that are about equal, so please keep trying, as I can only place one move as the solution and one as the variation.

Who's winning after 2...Qh4 (+- 1.56)? White is winning! The Fritz 12 engine lamp turns red when the engine finds something dramatic (i.e. when the value suddenly rises or falls dramatically. I will call it the Blunder Meter.

In this next puzzle there is only one good solution found by both Fritz and Rybka.

White is clearly better after 3...Bb4+ (+/- 1.26). 

Fritz 12 also searches for threats. 2)...Qh4 threatens 3)...Qxe4+.   2)...Qh4 threatens 3)...Bf4+. A very nice feature for a beginning patzer like myself. 

Wow, I can't believe that first position is supposed to be a forced win for white.

What do you mean? There's no forced win. White is just really far ahead in development and control of the center.

1.e4 - Best by test!

1...e6 - Smart play for something like the French Defense.

2.d4 - What else? Book for the French Defense.

2...Qh4?? - Not an accidental blunder by Black, but a move that I see far too often at my level of play.

3.Nc3! The refutation of Qh4. Bd3 works just as well, defending the pawn at e4. I played Qd2 in my blitz game, which also defends e4, but not the best refutation of Qh4. I did go on to win.

What will Black do after 3.Nc3? Change plans and play lines that follow sound opening principles? I doubt it. If the average beginner plays 3.Nc3, the win won't be forced, but it will be much easier.

The point of this thread is to provide beginners like myself with solid refutations of patzer opening tricks.  

What follows is Fritz playing against Fritz after Qh4. Even with strong computer moves from both White and Black, White wins after Black plays its second move. I find that fact amazing! The rook pawn endgame alone is highly instructive for many levels of play.

Freeze the game after 8.0-0 and ask yourself which side of the board gives you the best chance to win.

Enjoy the game!

Here is Fritz Sr. beating up on Fritz Jr. I picked the second best move now and then (a fritz computer move) and called it Fritz Jr. I found it most instructive, as you will see some very nice winning tactics by Fritz Sr. The game ends after only 28 moves. Qh4 is a bad move, as well as Bb4+.  

Your first puzzle looking for Nc3 is a good one I think -- I know when I first stared out there were tons of traps like this I fell for.  It's not a bad idea to show these sometimes, I think it helps others out,

I remember loosing my rook this way more than once...

It's a typical Fritz evaluation. It's an incredibly common occurrence (especially in the opening) that the Fritz 10 I use will be like "oh my god! look! you have 1.1 already!" and Rybka 3 will be like "calm down, I give you 0.4, maybe 0.5 if you're lucky"

That said, Qh4 is terrible and can't be that far off a pawn down. After Nf3 (having played Nc3) Black has to move his queen home or somewhere else crap, so Black is giving White an extra two tempi.

Here's the problem I have with the first "puzzle" being any kind of instructive for the new player who is struggling against 2. ... Qh4. The move Qh4 attacks an undefended piece and the solution is to defend it. If you have to be hand held through that on move 2, what's going to happen later when an undefended piece is attacked?

It may be that black is down 2 tempi, an advantage worth a pawn. But at the level where you have to be told to protect your attacked pieces, your game isn't going to be decided by 2 tempi in the opening.

A few comments:

I think it's a bit much to say that you're going to refute moves like 2... Qh4+.  With correct play, you should come away with a smallish edge due to extra development, but like Loomis said, without the skills to make use of a development advantage, this won't matter.  In other words, it doesn't matter if you get six free moves to start the game if you give away two pieces later in the game. Or, going further, it doesn't matter if you're two tempi ahead if you later spend time on moves that don't accomplish much, thereby giving back the tempi gained.

I also think it's going too far to say that one side is clearly winning despite an evaluation of +1.5 or -1.5 or whatever.  On an abstract level, +1.5 means white has an extra pawn and a slightly better position, but there's still a lot of room to grow before you can take that +1.5 and turn it to +3 → +5 → +9 → win.  At lower levels, +1.5 doesn't mean anything in terms of the end result because you'll throw away the +0.5 of positional advantage with a couple mediocre moves, or give up the +1 by dropping a pawn.  In other words, don't be so eager to make an evaluation of the end result of the game two moves in -- it doesn't matter at this point.

Finally, I'd suggest that if you feel the need to consult Fritz or Rybka to see that after 1. e4 e6 2. d4 Qh4, 3. Nc3 is a good move, you should probably be playing slower games and taking more time, rather than playing blitz matches where you don't have as much time to think. 

Hope this is helpful.

This is an interesting post. I've often wondered how to use chess software to analyse games. Not only does it show how you interpretate the information, but also how other experienced players have different interpretations.

It makes me question how much you can learn from the computer analysis. I've taken my free computer analysis that chess.com offer a few timesm, but never really bother anymore- I've no idea what it's blethering on about most of the time. This is also true of games of mine that has been put through fritz 11. No idea how to interpretate the data.

I know, but the computer said +1.5 or something, meaning winning, a little suprising.

The fact that initiative can be worth more than a pawn is the reason gambits are played. But I would agree here that the computer might be overestimating white's advantage.

Outstanding posts by all. Thank you! I am new to using engines for analysis, so any and all input is greatly appreciated.

I see the problem. Fritz finds Qh4 as winning for White, whereas Rybka sees only a slight advantage for White. Why?

In response to Rainbow: I took Fritz to depth=20. I am evaluating Qh4 again, taking Fritz, Rybka, Crafty and Stockfish to greater depths.

In response to Biarien: "I think it's a bit much to say that you're going to refute moves like 2... Qh4+." Oh! I was not attempting to refute Qh4+. The move was Qh4, threatening Qxe4+. Btw, thanks for the advice. I'm now playing slower games and making better moves.

In response to tonydal: "Yep, I'm afraid this post is a bit of babbling."

You hurt my feelings.  How about "thoughtful babbling".   Fritz 12 is instructing me and all of the other beginners that are viewing this thread that Qh4 is a blunder, not just a wasted move (loss in tempo). After 1.e4 e6 2.d4, would you consider 2...Qh4 a mistake?  

In response to Loomis: "The move Qh4 attacks an undefended piece and the solution is to defend it." I defended e4 with Qe2. Qe2 was not considered a strong response to Qh4, even though Qe2 defends e4 and protects f2. Nc3 and Bd3 were the best moves by far.

It's not. And don't repeat the computers +1.5 to me, that's not necessarily a win, much less a forced win.

By the way, the computer gives me a +6 point advantage in this endgame... but I can't seem to win. What gives?

:D. Are you sure your computer doesn't evaluate it as 0.00? It's not a very smart computer if it doesn't.

Yes, different chess engines are likely to give substantially different evaluations of a position only 3 moves into the game, because I imagine these will depend on the extent of their opening books. Realistically, 2. Qh4? is not so bad that black cannot recover, but it is definitely a bad move. Trying to assign an exact number to white's advantage this early isn't useful because, as several posters have pointed out, the rest of the opening will inevitably not go perfectly given the state of play on move two.  Just protect your pawn and be happy with your lead.

Computers should not be used this early in the game, this is why they are given opening books. Unless it is tactical they struggle this early in the game as anything happening is quite away on the horizon and so they don't know how to plan as there are so many. Of course white has an advantage, but the computer has no clue on evaluating the position as so few pieces have been developed, on the next few moves it will probably give 4 or 5 moves more or less the same evaluation, thinking a couple of moves are marginally better.

oh and somehow I think Kupov3 was joking...

Well, yeah, of course. He was trying to make a point about point advantages not necessarily meaning a win. Obviously, though, no computer should actually evaluate that position as +6.

Hey, I definitley don't think in my mind white would be winning, thus my suprise. 1.5 is indeed supposed to be winning, and of course forced win in this case would be in a very long range sense, even if it takes 70 moves or whatever. Now, my fritz 10 says something much more reasonable, +.5 (I think this is about right).

A "forced win" implies that white can win either material or the game through some unstoppable tactic. Hence "forced." That is obviously not the case here. If you can somehow prove that white has a forced win from here, go ahead and post it, but I am quite certain you can't.

And if you think computers can look 70 moves ahead (without tablebases), you are fooling yourself.

And Rainbow, even computers without tablebases evaluate some dead drawn endgames like KvK, KNvK, KBvK, and KNNvK as a draw. If they didn't at least do that, they couldn't play endgames at all.