Put in some moves of the Taylor defense and let it think for a while. Stockfish won't like what it sees.
The Smith-Morra Gambit is clearly the strongest opening.
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Can someone show me the opening? (with diagram) 
Exactly. What that actually means is that just by playing the Smith-Morra you make yourself slightly worse for the next 25 moves.
Jul 30, 2015
0
#6
pfren wrote:
Trying to "solve" the Morra using an engine? Hmmm... the only thing for sure is that you will lose your time for nothing.
The Morra is not better (actually a tiny tad worse) than the Alapin after 3...Nf6, offering nothing special in most variations, and probably struggling to equalize in the so-called Taylor variation.
Black may even have his own fun in the Taylor after 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 (I certainly play 3...Nf6 myself, as I don't meet Morraheads frequently) 4.Nxc3 Nc6 5.Nf3 d6 6.Bc4 a6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Bf4 (Essermans recommendation after several rather painful losses) 8...e5!? (Esserman thinks this is a blunder) 9.Ng5 exf4, where Black gains terrific positional compensation for the sacrificed exchange. The position is genuinely messy, but after analysing it for a few days (using engines and all assorted stuff) I am sure that over the board I would surely like being Black...
can't tell if doesn't realize it's a joke or is playing into thread.
Jul 30, 2015
0
#7
pfren wrote:
Pr0bl3m wrote:
can't tell if doesn't realize it's a joke or is playing into thread.
Can you translate it to English?
I am uncertain if you realize that this thread is a mockery of the Ruy Lopez thread, or think I am being entirely serious. This uncertainty is based on the post you made in the thread immediately prior to the one I am quoting in this post, as I am, from the tone in that post, unable to tell whether or not it was intended as sarcasm.
Jul 31, 2015
0
#8
pfren wrote:
I saw the postscript to #1, but your mocking, pseudo-literal post makes way more sense that the ones of our resident geniuses at the Ruy thread.
I'm afraid you have to press your imagination much harder to be able to reproduce 5OS and XJX classics...
Well, you'd acknowledge that practice is necessary to become good at anything, wouldn't you? :)
"Note: if you've been playing chess for more than two weeks and took any of this seriously, please find another game to play, for your own benefit." I'm just pointing this out (This may have been edited in, I don't know, I'm on phone).
I have had more success against the Smith-Morra gambit than against more conventional anti-Sicilian lines. My next chess newsletter will discuss the Smith-Morra gambit. Those who would like a free subscription can go to http://cloverchess.com and sign up for it.The optin form is in the right sidebar.
You can safely accept the gambit if you know what you are doing. One danger you have to guard against is a timely sacrifice of the Queen Knight at d5 to rip open Black's position. But if Black plays it right he can give White headaches trying to prove that the sacrifice was justified.
One of the most popular methods of declining the gambit actually favors White and my next chess newsletter will discuss this.
Jun 3, 2016
0
#13
I have always wondered why not play 2d2-d4 in the Sicilian instead of 2Ng1-f3. My point is after ..2cxd4 I will play 3 Ng1-f3 and most probably enter normal Sicilian lines. But if black gets too ambitious and tries to hang on to the pawn with ..3e7-e5, then I could go for the Morra (c2-c3) under more favorable circumstances (since e7-e5 is not so good for black in the Morra). Why not give black a chance to go wrong?!
I have a problem with the Morra , but a slightly bigger problem with the "Smith-Morra". An opening like a birth name is ascribed by "others". To promote your name in an opening to me is a llittle arrogant - and for others to go along with this has always struck me as strange.
The strongest player in my club plays the Morra, and at one time may have been the leading expert in the country. He swears by it. He has beated several titled players in the past with it - scoring an IM norm once. He ECF peaked at about 210/220 some years ago. He believes black should accept the pawn rather than go into a c3 Sicilian.
As a rapidplay opening , where the Morra player knows the theory , perhaps it has merit. I'm happy to accept the pawn as black .
Hello,
As a lifelong devotee of the Smith-Morra Gambit, it truly pains me whenever I see people bashing on it. While many dismissingly refer to this excellent opening as "weak" or say that it is generally used only by GMs as a surprise weapon, my deep research has completely overthrown this assessment!
Now, some readers, especially the absurdly arrogant titled players who frequent this forum, may ask what, exactly, I am doing. "Pr0bl3m, you're a weak class player with a 1500 standard rating on chess.com, and your OTB rating is ready to sink under four digits at any time!" These people are, of course, just being arrogant. :)
I am currently running Stockfish-6-32 with the Arena GUI on a (roughly) average consumer desktop PC. This engine, under this particular set of conditions, is almost universally agreed to be far stronger than any human player. I have let it analyze the position after 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 for several minutes. It currently reads +0.07 at 25 ply; since Stockfish gives +/- signs relative to the color it is currently analyzing in, this means that it believes White has an -0.07 pawn disadvantage.
Some readers, especially stuffy masters who don't like seeing their booked-up dogma challenged, might not understand the importance of these results. While it is true that White is "supposed" to have a small advantage - say, +0.20 - throughout the opening, assuming that both sides correctly play a mainstream variation, we need to remember that humans are not perfect chess machines. From a computer perspective, even the best humans - Super-GMs playing at classical time controls - are constantly pushing inaccuracies out on the board, so losing -0.27 pawns out of the opening doesn't mean much for White.
The reader might, at this stage, very reasonably ask: "Pr0bl3m, if this is true, why is it that the Smith-Morra, along with many similar openings, is not a go-to opening for every strong player on the planet?" There are many answers to this! The first one is that it's an "anti-positional" move - it sacrifices a pawn without immediately gaining it back. Because of this, many people don't like to play it on purely psychological grounds; they are not comfortable playing aggressively when they are down material. Psychological grounds, though, ought to have nothing to do with the objective play of modern top players. (but, since they do, the Smith-Morra becomes a surprise weapon... making it even stronger!)
The largest reason that the Smith-Morra is not in the automatic repertoire of every player over 2700 is simple: dogma. These people like to talk about their "chess knowledge," or about how "White is supposed to have an advantage in the opening," or say things like "the Smith-Morra is just not a great choice." Well, the assessments of my engine, coupled with my absolutely flawless logic, conclusively demonstrate that this line of reasoning is wrong. Stockfish is the best, and it knows all... deal with it
I fully expect to see the Smith-Morra being used as a frequent opening in the next World Championship match, and to become just as respected as the Ruy Lopez or Slav within the next few years, as more and more players begin to reject nonsenical dogma and discover the beauty of chess engines. But the real joy for me will come when I receive my honorary GM title for my contributions to chess theory and top-level play, just for this post.
Thank you for reading, and be sure to use the Smith-Morra in all of your subsequent games, just to prove to those stupid GMs how wrong they are!
- Pr0bl3m
note: if you've been playing chess for more than two weeks and took any of this seriously, please find another game to play, for your own benefit.