"What makes people think that Grob's Opening is so bad?"
++ It loses by force for white and it is the only move that loses by force for white.
Neither one of these statements is proven. Those AlphaZero papers are anecdotal evidence at best, not anything scientific.
"What makes people think that Grob's Opening is so bad?"
++ It loses by force for white and it is the only move that loses by force for white.
Neither one of these statements is proven. Those AlphaZero papers are anecdotal evidence at best, not anything scientific.
They're not anecdotal evidence, they're tripe.
Anyone who knows anything about chess knows that you can't lose "by force" after the first move especially as white. It's a draw.
While I'm at it the phrase "loses by force" is such a dumb expression. If you mean "forced loss" then just say that. Unless your opponent is physically trying to stop you from playing moves "losing by force" makes no sense, it's just a dyslexic way of saying "forced loss".
Fun fact: the Barnes opening has no connection to Barnes.
He played 1. e4 f6 against Morphy. It was then named the Barnes Defence - which is already misleading: he did not play that as a good move, just as a surprise. Once.
He probably never played 1. f3, so it's extremely dumb to name it after him. We should probably call it Carlsen Opening. At least he played it once, unlike Barnes.
I think the grob is just bad because of the tempo with d4 attacking the pawn
Consider this: bots at 3500 ELO can't find a way for White to not lose in the Grob.
This is a ubiquitous misconception about engines. Playing one engine game doesn't actually tell you much about how good the position is. You have to play many engine games.
Please read posts #6 and #8 (by me) as I'm not going to explain it again.
TL;DR: it is possible to get a draw from Grob's opening as Stockfish is unable to force a win due to the limitations of current hardware.
Something I haven't mentioned yet is that Stockfish's developers have created a model of how the evaluation works: https://github.com/official-stockfish/WDL_model
Also something I haven't mentioned is that the technically inclined can get Stockfish to report its exact WDL values alongside the evaluation by setting the UCI_ShowWDL option to true.
@22
"Those AlphaZero papers are anecdotal evidence at best, not anything scientific."
++ Those are scientific papers published in a scientific journal. 7 authors from DeepMind and Google Brain, one former World Champion of Chess, using much time on powerful computers.
Who are you to disqualify that?
@23
"Anyone who knows anything about chess knows that you can't lose "by force" after the first move especially as white. It's a draw."
++ Yes, chess is a draw, but not after 1 g4? or after 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6?
"loses by force is such a dumb expression." ++ It is the exact same expression Fischer used about the King's Gambit and Caruana used about some variation of the Petrov.
Are you some kind of English teacher?
@22
"Those AlphaZero papers are anecdotal evidence at best, not anything scientific."
++ Those are scientific papers published in a scientific journal. 7 authors from DeepMind and Google Brain, one former World Champion of Chess, using much time on powerful computers.
Yeah, yeah, six company guys whose main goal was to advertise their company. Plus Kramnik, who was also paid by the same company. Nothing suspicious here, they surely had an objective scientific mindset. Surely.
But my main point is that whatever is in those papers, it's the opinion of one computer team, based on ridiculously shallow computer analysis plus a lot of assumptions. They didn't have the computing power to prove an opening is losing. Heck, they didn't even have one billionth of the computing power needed for that.
g4 is worse, but it is harder to play against at a lower level. f3 is easy to combat, with moves like e5 or d5
@16
'My opponent does not know everything.' ++ He does not need to know, he needs to be able to find moves. Chess is a game of skill, not a game of knowledge.
"If Black does know how to respond, then the game goes on."
++ If he finds the good moves, then you lose.
"Here's an example of a possible game outcome that happens to me a lot: [1. a3 e5 2. c4 Nf6 3. e3 Nc6 4. c5 Bxc5 5. Bc4 Na5 6. Ba2 Nc6 7. Qb3 Na5 8. Qxf7#]." ++ That is beginner chess.
"I don't need the centre to do that." ++ You need your opponent to miss a checkmate in one.
"This strategy works most of the time." ++ Against beginners.
"where every move considers every single branch of the move tree."
++ That is not necessary. We know some positions are won/drawn/lost without considering every branch. We know 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? loses by force, and 1 g4? is the same.
"I don't believe that people are going to choose a perfect branch of the move tree", since they can't see the whole thing." ++ They do not need to, they can just apply logic.
"None of us has every possible chain of moves memorised."
++ There is no need to. Chess must not be memorised. Chess is a skill game, no memory game.
"If the people in ICCF correspondence chess in higher levels play perfectly, then they'll have solved chess." ++ They have in part weakly solved Chess. They use computers, 5 days / move.
"we'll solve the whole 1. f3 branch of chess."
++ There is no need to do that. We can conclude about a position without a whole branch.
We can apply logic. For example 1 f3 d5 2 f4 is exactly the same as 1 d4 f5.
"no perfect game with 1. f3 ends in a win." ++ Exactly.
"There is no way for Black to beat 1. g4 either" ++ Yes there is. I presented 3 sequences, somebody else corroborated and presented a sequence too.
"you can also just deliberately make the mistake of 1. f3 without severe consequences."
After 1 e4 black can draw, after 1 f3 white can draw, and after 1 g4? white cannot draw.
"Would I use Grob's Opening?" ++ You can. I presented above a game where Basman defeated a grandmaster with it. In ICCF correspondence or in a classical game against a top grandmaster 1 g4? leads to a certain loss, but on lower levels and/or shorter time controls it does not matter.
"If I make a mistake, yes, it backfires, but I just have to not blunder." ++ No. If your opponent makes no mistake after 1 g4?, then you lose, with or without further blunder on your part.
It's well-known that science sold out long ago and a label of "science" is absolutely useless to differentiate fact from fiction anymore. Now if it's a very high quality journal like Nature, then of course they're probably saying something that's fairly accurate. Otherwise, no, the name of science has been exploited and will continue to be exploited to the point where something in a science journal is probably more suspicous than a guy self-publishing it. People whose funding relies on their science label obviously aren't going to go around saying this but will certainly acknowledge "bad science" if pressed. Check out Ben Goldacre's "Battling Bad Science", something advocated by the scientific community itself.
i \ see that there are already alot of comments about this already/ but I thought someone might get something from my two cents anyway. If you like blitz and like alot of tactics in the opening below 1500-1600. the grob is playable/ If black is prepped however and plays 1..d5 white gets a losing position by force. When I say this/ its means -1.25 pawns down, which if your opponent is a master, and not under the pressure of a blitz game, he has a winning position. I would also say this opening is popular online, with lots of players getting trappy wins, so who knows!?
Barnes Opening has known to be the worst since the 60's. Its used to be a coffehouse opening back then, in blitz money games/ and some games even made into Schach magazine believe it or not. I do not know if these 50+ year old issues still exist though. It also had another brief spike due to the Bongcloud opening. If serves no purpose except for surprise, and if you are going for shock value u are better of going for 1.g4 or 1.h4
If your opponent plays any move other than 1..e5/ Please come to your senses immediately and offer to play a reversed dutch defence with 2.f4
later dudes
goommba88
To tygxc,
1. 'My opponent does not know everything.' ++ He does not need to know, he needs to be able to find moves. Chess is a game of skill, not a game of knowledge. / "None of us has every possible chain of moves memorised." ++ There is no need to. Chess must not be memorised. Chess is a skill game, no memory game.
I don't know if you do, but most higher level players play chess with a timer. So, knowing what moves to play before your opponents do is a time advantage. I can't waste all my time looking for a good move, I should learn an opening and then memorise. Bobby Fischer studied. Henri Grob studied. Savielly Tartakower studied. Chess is a game of skill and knowledge. If you think that these great (or, at least, notable) players did not need to study, then why did they win and others who depended on reading the board, not? We can't waste all our time reading the board.
2. "If Black does know how to respond, then the game goes on." ++ If he finds the good moves, then you lose.
Exactly. That's how chess works. If I find the good moves, then Black loses. If we both find the good moves, then we draw. You are right, but the message is incomplete.
3. "Here's an example of a possible game outcome that happens to me a lot: [1. a3 e5 2. c4 Nf6 3. e3 Nc6 4. c5 Bxc5 5. Bc4 Na5 6. Ba2 Nc6 7. Qb3 Na5 8. Qxf7#]." ++ That is beginner chess.
Every great chess player had their beginnings. The strategy can be adapted.
4. "I don't need the centre to do that." ++ You need your opponent to miss a checkmate in one.
If they don't, I adapt, moving around the connected pieces, forking, and forcing counterplay. I already mentioned that Black can improve against the strategy, and I can improve against the counterstrategy.
5. "This strategy works most of the time." ++ Against beginners.
Chess masters are just beginners who are closer to the end. So I just need to advance the strategy far enough. Again,
"The great master places a knight on e5; checkmate follows by itself." -Savielly Tartakower
So, if Savielly Tartakower was a beginner, then what?
6. "where every move considers every single branch of the move tree." ++ That is not necessary. We know some positions are won/drawn/lost without considering every branch. We know 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? loses by force, and 1 g4? is the same.
So, you say you don't need to know. What happens when I do moves you haven't considered?
And anyways, you exaggerated the similarity between [1. e4 e5 2. Ba6] and [1. g4]. [2. Ba6] sacrifices a bishop for (apparent) nothing, meanwhile [1. g4 d4 2. c4], does.
7. "I don't believe that people are going to choose a perfect branch of the move tree", since they can't see the whole thing." ++ They do not need to, they can just apply logic.
If I saw a piece of paper, and did not look through it, or around it, I would not reach the conclusion that I am holding a book. If I could not see nor go outside of the walls, roof, and floor that I call my home, I would believe that it is the entire world.
Logic: I see a page. Just a page.
Conclusion: There is just a page. No book.
Logic: I have seen no world outside these walls.
Conclusion: There is no world outside these walls.
Any logic with incomplete evidence is incomplete truth, which is not true.
8. "If the people in ICCF correspondence chess in higher levels play perfectly, then they'll have solved chess." ++ They have in part weakly solved Chess. They use computers, 5 days / move.
Let's say I have a diamond with a 95% purity. Is it pure? No! Is it kind of pure? Sure. But we have no way to measure chess perfection other than winning, losing, drawing, and seeing the move branches. Would I be able to see the purity of a diamond without a microscope? No. Can I see the effectiveness of my chess moves without knowing all the ways it could end? No.
9. "we'll solve the whole 1. f3 branch of chess." ++ There is no need to do that. We can conclude about a position without a whole branch. We can apply logic. For example 1 f3 d5 2 f4 is exactly the same as 1 d4 f5.
Let's say that I take a stone and throw it into a river. There are a hundred places where it could land, and many different kinds of throws and stones to get to the exact same spot. Maths are the same. I know that 1 + 1 = 2. And I know that 1 + 0.5 + 0.5 = 2 as well. But there are many places where the stone of winning or losing a chess game with f3 could land, which means different equations. You cannot use logic with insufficient evidence. I cannot say that a building will definitively be finished by Friday if I do not know the builders' schedule.
10. "no perfect game with 1. f3 ends in a win." ++ Exactly.
No perfect game ends in a win nor loss. All perfect games draw. So yes, exactly. I'm glad we agree on that. Grob's Opening games draw too.
11. "There is no way for Black to beat 1. g4 either" ++ Yes there is. I presented 3 sequences, somebody else corroborated and presented a sequence too. / "you can also just deliberately make the mistake of 1. f3 without severe consequences." After 1 e4 black can draw, after 1 f3 white can draw, and after 1 g4? white cannot draw.
I already said that chess engines are not perfect either. You ignored the context of "perfect games". All perfect games will draw, just as 1 (perfect White moves) + -1 (perfect Black moves) will always equal 0 (draw). Everything will balance out to zero with perfect play.
12. "Would I use Grob's Opening?" ++ You can. I presented above a game where Basman defeated a grandmaster with it. In ICCF correspondence or in a classical game against a top grandmaster 1 g4? leads to a certain loss, but on lower levels and/or shorter time controls it does not matter.
I do use Grob's Opening. Basman defeated a grandmaster with it, proving that Grob's Opening is a viable option at high levels. And there is no certainty after one move, both sides may blunder.
13. "If I make a mistake, yes, it backfires, but I just have to not blunder." ++ No. If your opponent makes no mistake after 1 g4?, then you lose, with or without further blunder on your part.
There is always more than one good move. For every good move there is a counter.
"The move is there, but you must see it." -Savielly Tartakower
---
Anyways, a lot of Tartakowerisms motivate me to use Grob's Opening, and other openings such as Anderssen's Opening and Clemenz's Opening.
"As long as an opening is reputed to be weak it can be played." -Savielly Tartakower
Grob's Opening included.
"To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game." -Savielly Tartakower
I sacrifice g4 to attack on the queenside, or trick the opponent with other attacks. I am ready to lose a piece, it is just one piece. I am ready to lose the game, it is just one game. But I will learn and take advantage of the loss and turn it into a gain.
"Some part of a mistake is always correct." -Savielly Tartakower
Every opening has a problem and a benefit.
"The player that takes risks may lose, the player that doesn't always loses." -Savielly Tartakower
Every opening has its risks. Grob's Opening's risks may be more apparent. But I'm willing to take the chance of losing a pawn or two for positional gains. Savielly Tartakower took the risk of using a new defence, and it worked. Henri Grob took those risks, and he became Swiss Chess Champion and an International Master for it. So I'm taking them too.
@38
"knowing what moves to play before your opponents do is a time advantage."
++ A time advantage wins no games. There are famous examples:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139797
After white's move 19, white had used 5 minutes and black 90 minutes. Guess who won...
"I can't waste all my time looking for a good move"
++ You can and should invest time to find good moves.
"I should learn an opening and then memorise."
++ No. You can only postpone the moment you have to think yourself.
"We can't waste all our time reading the board."
++ We can and should invest time to find good moves.
A famous example: black had secretly studied 8...d5 for years. White was taken by surprise.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1095025
"[1. e4 e5 2. Ba6] and [1. g4]. [2. Ba6] sacrifices a bishop for (apparent) nothing, meanwhile [1. g4 d4 2. c4], does."
++ 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? is easier to win than 1 g4?, but both lose by force for white.
"Any logic with incomplete evidence is incomplete truth, which is not true."
++ 'Chess is a very logical game and it is the man who can reason most logically and profoundly in it that ought to win' - Capablanca
"Can I see the effectiveness of my chess moves without knowing all the ways it could end?"
++ Yes. By applying logic 1 e4 cannot be worse than 1 a4, 1 f3, or 1 g4?. Likewise 1 Nf3 cannot be worse than 1 Nh3. We know that without having a full branch.
"You cannot use logic with insufficient evidence" ++ Yes, I can, do, and should.
"No perfect game ends in a win nor loss. All perfect games draw." ++ Yes.
"Grob's Opening games draw too." ++ No. 1 g4? loses by force just like 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6?
"Everything will balance out to zero with perfect play." ++ Yes, but not 1 g4? or 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6?
"Basman defeated a grandmaster with it, proving that Grob's Opening is a viable option at high levels."
++ Yes, at IM level and/or short time controls the mistake 1 g4? is inconsequential as other mistakes will certainly follow.
In a Candidates' tournament or in ICCF WC Finals 1 g4? means a guaranteed loss.
"There is always more than one good move." ++ No, sometimes there is only 1.
"other openings such as Anderssen's Opening and Clemenz's Opening." ++ Yes Anderssen's 1 a3 is sound, white plays as if black with extra tempo a3? Likewise Clemens 1 h3, though it weakens the king's side. IM Basman in later years gave up on 1 g4 and shifted to 1 h3, 2 a3.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1026344
'As long as an opening is reputed to be weak it can be played'
++ Yes, at lower levels and in fast time controls you can play anything.
"I am ready to lose a piece, it is just one piece."
++ 'The winning of a pawn among good players of even strength
often means the winning of the game' - Capablanca
#38
"Every great chess player had their beginnings. The strategy can be adapted."
black plays Nc6 Na5 twice which is a waste of tempo, he can spend that time developing his pieces
and most reasonable defences happen to block the threat anyway
most players would play something similar to what i have here as black
infact, they would probably play d5 and prevent Bc4 in the first place
"I can improve against the counterstrategy."
show how?
my counterstrategy is found in the above board
"So, you say you don't need to know. What happens when I do moves you haven't considered?"
candidate moves are all the moves that are likely to be good
blundering a bishop for no reason (in most situations) would result in a suboptimal result and thus can be safely ignored in the "solution" to a branch of chess
and if there are tactics, we have reasonably strong engines which can easily point it out
"Any logic with incomplete evidence is incomplete truth, which is not true."
if you can scale a logic to all the cases and prove that the scaling is valid, even if you dont have evidence for each part of it, you may be able to prove the entire logic to be true
weakly solved games are an example
you can also ignore irrelevant cases like blundering a bishop (alpha beta pruning)
(your number 9 response)
f3 d5 f4 is the exact same as d4 f5 because:
the pieces of the next moving player are at the same spots
the pieces of the other player are at the same spots
castling/en passant rules are same
all the strategies you can do on d4 f5 can be replicated flawlessly on f3 d5 f4
"No perfect game ends in a win nor loss. All perfect games draw."
unless you start in a position that is a win for one player
then, the perfect game from there is a win for that player
"There is always more than one good move."
i take your queen with mine
you can recapture only with your rook
no checks
now, tell me, are there more than 1 good moves here?
____
about the original statement, g4 weakens the kingside permanently, and the king will take a lot of time to go to the queenside
it has some trappish lines, but the Bxa8 one is unclear because of how important whites bishop is
black can attack if white goes 0-0
this line isnt even close to being a win for white
as you said, "To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game." -Savielly Tartakower
To tygxc,
1. "knowing what moves to play before your opponents do is a time advantage." ++ A time advantage wins no games. There are famous examples: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139797 After white's move 19, white had used 5 minutes and black 90 minutes. Guess who won...
This is missing half of what I said. Memorising moves gives you more time to think on more complicated positions (midgames, chains, endgames). Those will always be very different depending on your opponent. The start will be mostly the same all the time (e4 is very common, so response patterns will be used lots). You save time by memorising, and then spend it in more important times.
Karoly Honfi, in your example, blunders a rook by not looking deep enough. Honfi did not spend the time that they should've in the position. In this case, Honfi did not use the extra time that they had on thinking. Time advantages only pay off when used. Honfi did not use it.
Let's say that some Example Player 1 spends equal time thinking on his openings, midgames, and endgames. Example Player 2 spends less time on his openings, and more time on more complicated positions. Both have 30:00 on their time. Example Player 1 has less time to think through more complicated positions, while Example Player 2 does. Example Player 2 breezes through the opening stages with effective and memorised responses, while Example Player 1 thinks through every position with equal time. Example Player 1 wastes time, and cuts thinking short in more complicated positions because he spent more time thinking over easily memorisable opening positions.
In this example, the priorities are in the wrong place for Example Player 1. We can save time on our openings to spend for later positions, placing more priority on investigating what is usually different, instead of what is very similar all the time.
It is true that this advantage goes away in longer timed or untimed games, but time is always limited in some way, and it certainly is in most high-level competitions.
2. "I can't waste all my time looking for a good move" ++ You can and should invest time to find good moves.
True. But I'm talking about studying for the start of the game, not the rest. I save time in similar positions to spend in later, different, and more complicated positions. So, I can't waste all my time looking for a good move in easily memorisable opening positions.
3. "I should learn an opening and then memorise." ++ No. You can only postpone the moment you have to think yourself.
This pushes the sentence to extremes. I didn't mean that I should memorise my opening's midgames; there are too many different good moves that can be played. So it is true that I can only postpone the moment when I must read the board, but that's what I saved time for: reading the board in more complicated positions. Effective moves for simple opening positions can be memorised to give an advantage in more complicated positions.
4. "We can't waste all our time reading the board." ++ We can and should invest time to find good moves. A famous example: black had secretly studied 8...d5 for years. White was taken by surprise. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1095025
This is confusing me. This is a counterpoint to your own argument: Black studied! Black knew the answers without having to read the whole board for every position. Black knew what moves to play, instead of having to read the board more. That saved time for Black, and Black also knew tactics for it too. So studying helps for tactics and time.
5. "[1. e4 e5 2. Ba6] and [1. g4]. [2. Ba6] sacrifices a bishop for (apparent) nothing, meanwhile [1. g4 d4 2. c4], does." ++ 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6? is easier to win than 1 g4?, but both lose by force for white.
There are many examples of White winning with [1. g4]. Many of losing, too, but that's probably because the majority of Grob's Opening players played out of a challenge, and didn't study. Anyways, [1. e4 e5 Ba6] loses three points, [1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4] loses one. Fritz's Gambit [3. c4] trades two pawns, but dooms a rook with a bishop after [4. Bxb7]. I find that it's a lot easier to win with a pawn that's easy to sacrifice for position, but also defend, than by straight out sacrificing a bishop for (apparent) nothing.
6. "Any logic with incomplete evidence is incomplete truth, which is not true." ++ 'Chess is a very logical game and it is the man who can reason most logically and profoundly in it that ought to win' - Capablanca
Hmm... 1 + x = Ans. Use logic with the incomplete evidence to find "Ans". Also, x = ?. Not everyone will get the same number for Ans. It will only be truly right if x is revealed. The x variable is needed to get one singular answer.
Capablanca was also talking about reading the whole board and reasoning through each branch farther than opponents. So, if I think through good moves for Grob's Opening farther than my opponents do, I ought to win. Study saves my time.
And, Capablanca was talking about midgames and endgames. If you think farther and make better moves than your opponent, then you win. But that's comparison to an opponent, not perfection.
Let's say that there's a scale from 0 to 10, 0 being that this player loses in two turns every single time, and 10 being that this player is playing at perfection. Let's say that someone's at a 6.5, and their opponent is at a 5. They probably beat their opponent. But that's because they were good enough. They've got enough logic to win. But we're talking about 10. Perfection. Not being skilled enough to win, being able to see or reason through everything.
The logic here:
If I drop a stone and there's nothing attached to it or pushing on it than gravity, and nothing in between it and the floor, and I'm on Earth, then it will hit the floor. I have enough evidence to state that fact.
If I play 1. g4, I won't lose all the time. I just need to be good enough to beat my opponent. My opponent will never be at a 10 (unless it's a bot that's solved chess), so I just need to be better.
In the same sense, we're batting around our reasons of whether 1. g4 or 1. f3 is better than the other. If one of us runs out of counterreasons, then the other person wins the argument. I doubt that one of us is going to totally solve chess (I tried to solve the whole branch of Anderssen's Opening since it's the first move listed in most chess encyclopaedias, and I gave up after turn 3 because of the lag and the unnecessary effort for one argument). We're probably not going to reach perfection with this argument; we just need to be better than the other to win. So let's reason this out: you haven't won this argument yet.
7. "Can I see the effectiveness of my chess moves without knowing all the ways it could end?" ++ Yes. By applying logic 1 e4 cannot be worse than 1 a4, 1 f3, or 1 g4?. Likewise 1 Nf3 cannot be worse than 1 Nh3. We know that without having a full branch. / "Grob's Opening games draw too." ++ No. 1 g4? loses by force just like 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6?
This is as if you've already won the argument. The logic is what we're talking about.
You can't say that we fully know the effectiveness of a chess move without the whole branch. There are many branches, but I'll use an easier example.
P1 plays a rook to a clear file, preparing to play a back rank mate. If his opponent decides to move his horse (which is away from that file), P1 wins. After that, his opponent takes his rook with a pawn. P1 did not know that branch, and is now at a 5-point disadvantage, and his opponent has two queens.
Sure, it's a lot simpler to see that branch. But without even just one of the possibilities, there's a huge problem for that. And, with scaling logic, earlier back, that rule must apply too. There may be major moves for [1. g4] that we do not know or have considered yet.
There was a game between Anderssen and Morphy that Anderssen lost. If Anderssen decided not to move the pawn on that one edge two spaces forward, then he wouldn't've been diagonally trapped by a queen threatening diagonally, and a rook threatening the back rank, and those two edge pawns. He could've won without that one move earlier. If someone saw that game in the middle of it, and saw Anderssen's attacking queen, close to the king, and only blocked by a bishop, could he conclude that, by looking very shortly forward, that Anderssen was going to win? No. He did not know the branches. He did not know the full extent of the way the game could've gone. Neither did Anderssen. That's why Anderssen lost.
Could I then conclude that 1. e4 is a bad opening, through this logic?
Adolf Anderssen, who was the World Chess Champion of time, lost with 1. e4.
Really good players can still lose with 1. e4.
Therefore, 1. e4 is bad.
Because Anderssen used it, and he lost. The World Chess Champion of the time, using 1. e4, and losing?
No as well. 1. e4 can be played in many different ways. I don't know every branch, so I can't say that 1. e4 loses all the time with perfect play. It also proves that even World Chess Champions are not perfect players; they blunder too.
So we can't fully conclude that one opening (1. g4) confines someone to a 100% loss rate, without seeing how all the games might go. Or else 1. e4 is a bad opening too.
8. "You cannot use logic with insufficient evidence" ++ Yes, I can, do, and should.
Again: solve this.
x = ?
1 + x = Ans
You can't make the answer certain, right? There is insufficient evidence. If you knew what x was, then you could definitively solve this. If you did not, then you can't. Same with chess.
9. "No perfect game ends in a win nor loss. All perfect games draw." ++ Yes.
So then perfect 1. g4 games always draw too? (Don't ignore the context.)
10. "Everything will balance out to zero with perfect play." ++ Yes, but not 1 g4? or 1 e4 e5 2 Ba6?
Hmm... let's do some math.
-2.6 (Grob's Opening rated in points by Stockfish 11 Lite at depth 30 (Positive = White is winning, Negative = Black is winning)) - ∞ (Perfect Black move) + ∞ (Perfect White move) - ∞ (Perfect Black move) + ∞ (Perfect White play)...
That makes a 0. (What I mean by "perfect play" is "moves that steer that player onto a branch with the most wins possible". That's also why a whole branch needs to be solved to find the perfect move.)
Also, since you use AI for your arguments:
An updated version of Stockfish that I now use (can't find the version number) says that Grob's Opening is a -0.2 move at a depth of 2048, and Barnes' Opening is a -0.2 move, and the KPO is a -0.2 move (White starts at a +0.2 advantage for being able to choose moves that affect Black's responses before Black can attack). A consistent pattern was that some openings that start seemingly better (e.g. KPO, QPO, Hungarian), end consistently in draws, and some openings that start seemingly worse (e.g. Grob's, Barnes', Bird's) end consistently in, well, draws. (Also, I don't know if this is necessary information, but it also says that Larcen's Opening (1. b3) and Réti's Opening (1. Nf3) are good, at a 0.0 rating.)
(I would not recommend trying this out yourself if you don't have a spare Chromebook.)
11. "Basman defeated a grandmaster with it, proving that Grob's Opening is a viable option at high levels." ++ Yes, at IM level and/or short time controls the mistake 1 g4? is inconsequential as other mistakes will certainly follow. In a Candidates' tournament or in ICCF WC Finals 1 g4? means a guaranteed loss.
Guaranteed? We don't know all the branches of the move tree (see my full argument above, I'm not going to rewrite it too many times), so we can't guarantee. Anyways, through that logic, I would again be able to conclude that the KPO (1. e4) is a bad opening, because Anderssen (and many others) lost when using it. I think that neither Grob's Opening nor the KPO are bad openings, it's just that the KPO has been standing for so long as "World's Best Opening", and that Grob's Opening has been standing for so long as "World's Worst Opening", when it's really how well a person plays that decides whether a person wins or not for the rest of the game, and, well, as Capablanca said,
"Chess is a very logical game and it is the man who can reason most logically and profoundly in it that ought to win" - Capablanca
In other words, it doesn't matter whether you use Grob's Opening or not, but whether you're better than your opponent or not. So there is no "guaranteed" loss for someone against an opponent if they are better than that opponent. Magnus Carlsen and Michael Basman have beaten GMs with Grob's Opening, meaning that if you're good, you can use it. (Magnus has also beaten GMs with the Bongcloud Attack, but that's another topic.)
12. "There is always more than one good move." ++ No, sometimes there is only 1.
True. That's a mistake on my part; I meant to say "There is always at least one good move".
13. "other openings such as Anderssen's Opening and Clemenz's Opening." ++ Yes Anderssen's 1 a3 is sound, white plays as if black with extra tempo a3? Likewise Clemens 1 h3, though it weakens the king's side. IM Basman in later years gave up on 1 g4 and shifted to 1 h3, 2 a3.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1026344
Clemenz's Opening opens up a space on h2. After kingside castling, it provides the benefit of not being able to be back rank mated in that area, nor being attacked diagonally through f2 or h2, so White can release both rooks safely without having to repurpose attacking time moving a pawn, after Black has prepared one of their own attacks. I usually don't kingside castle (please don't comment on my strategy, it's not necessary), but I usually do more often after 1. h3.
After this, let's not talk anymore about Anderssen's Opening and Clemenz's Opening, and steer back on topic to Grob's Opening and Barnes' Opening.
13. 'As long as an opening is reputed to be weak it can be played' ++ Yes, at lower levels and in fast time controls you can play anything.
My next Google search:
"Were Savielly Tartakower, Michael Basman, and Magnus Carlsen players at a lower level because they used reputedly weak openings and won?"
14. "I am ready to lose a piece, it is just one piece." ++ 'The winning of a pawn among good players of even strength often means the winning of the game' - Capablanca
Again,
"To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game." -Savielly Tartakower
So I will not avoid losing pieces; it is an inevitable part of high-level chess. I will sacrifice a pawn if it is to my positional advantage. Anyways, this would say that Capablanca might've been against offering gambits. This also ignores the positional advantage gained by most gambits being accepted.
A good example of a good sacrifice of pawns for development is the Danish Gambit Accepted, PGN [1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3]. White is far ahead in development, allowing time for more control of the centre, or, as how I would play it, a rapid f-file attack.
To Ilampohzhil25,
1. "Every great chess player had their beginnings. The strategy can be adapted." black plays Nc6 Na5 twice which is a waste of tempo, he can spend that time developing his pieces and most reasonable defences happen to block the threat anyway
So, I move the pieces around. I might play what Savielly Tartakower recommended, by putting a horse on e5. Or I'll do something else. Black and White can both improve. Besides, this is an older kind of my strategy, when I knew less. I've changed some moves, but the main element of attacking the f7 (or g7 / h7 after ks. castling, or b7 after qs. castling) and giving the king less and less places to run is still there.
2. most players would play something similar to what i have here as black infact, they would probably play d5 and prevent Bc4 in the first place
The original PGN was for when the strategy was more risky and when I was not as good at chess as I am now. The strategy that I usually play nowadays is more like this:
[1. a3 e5 2. e3 d5 3. c4 dxc4 4. Bxc4 Nc6 5. Ba2 Nf6 6. Qb3 Na5 7. Qxf7#]
Although, sometimes (but kind of rarely), some people offer a bishop trade with [4. Bxc4 Be6], at which point I would accept the trade with [5. Bxe6 fxe6]. I would then try to catch them off guard with [6. Qh5+], expecting my opponent to respond with a block [6. Qh5+ g6], at which point I would attack for material [7. Qxe5]. Now, the rook is under threat. If Black manages to see the threat, Black should block it by [7. Qxe5 Nf6]. Then I would take the other pawn by [8. Qxe6+]. I expect Black to block it by [8. Qxe6+ Be7]. After that, I would play [9. Nf3]. There are now too many ways for Black to respond, so I usually adapt at this point. But, if Black does not play [9. Nf3 h3] or threaten the queen in some way, I would play [10. Ng5]. I expect Black to kick the horse with [10. Ng5 h3]. After that, I would fork Black's queen and rook with [11. Nf7], exploiting the fact that f7 is initially only defended by Black's king, and when a piece is defended there, Black's king can't take it.
At this point, there are too many different ways to play, so I think that you should give your counters before I continue. Anyways, we should also probably get back on topic to Grob's Opening, not attacking f7.
3. if you can scale a logic to all the cases and prove that the scaling is valid, even if you dont have evidence for each part of it, you may be able to prove the entire logic to be true
There's a difference between incomplete evidence and insufficient evidence. In some cases, you can scale logic and prove it, that is true. That means that you have incomplete evidence, but it is sufficient evidence to prove the logic. So, thank you for pointing that out. I mean "insufficient", not "incomplete", which is my mistake.
Insufficient evidence will always be incomplete (e.g. 1 + x = ?), but incomplete evidence will not always be incomplete (e.g. finding the third angle of a triangle if angle #1 is, say, 102°, and angle #2 was, say, 59°, there is incomplete evidence, but it is sufficient for finding out that the last angle is 19°).
(Invalid evidence, though, would be if angle #2 was 59° C.)
Thanks for pointing out my mistake.
4. f3 d5 f4 is the exact same as d4 f5 because: the pieces of the next moving player are at the same spots the pieces of the other player are at the same spots castling/en passant rules are same all the strategies you can do on d4 f5 can be replicated flawlessly on f3 d5 f4
I don't remember if I said anything contradictory to this. In this case, White has "skipped" their first turn and played a colour-inverted Dutch Defence. So, yes, this is right.
5. "No perfect game ends in a win nor loss. All perfect games draw." unless you start in a position that is a win for one player then, the perfect game from there is a win for that player
All moves before that, then, are imperfect, and tilt the game in that one player's favour. When the game is tilted far enough that a player has branches to choose from with a 100% winning rate, that makes it a solved game. But, that takes quite a bit of time to reach. Not possible from one imperfect move.
If you'd like to prove that Grob's Opening is a solved Black win, then please show me the winning percentages with every branch, because it'd be cool to see the best way how someone could play Grob's Opening, and whether I should use it or not.
6. "There is always more than one good move." i take your queen with mine you can recapture only with your rook no checks now, tell me, are there more than 1 good moves here?
As I've said, that's a mistake on my part. I mean that there's at least one good move. So, from this point on, please instead reference this corrected sentence:
"There is always at least one good move."
But, yeah, my mistake. When there's only one valid move, that's the only good move.
7. about the original statement, g4 weakens the kingside permanently, and the king will take a lot of time to go to the queenside it has some trappish lines, but the Bxa8 one is unclear because of how important whites bishop is black can attack if white goes 0-0
PGN: [1. g4 d5 2. g2 Bxg4 3. c4 dxc4 4. Bxb7 Nd7 5. Bxa8 Qxa8]
1. whites rook is attacked,
White plays [6. f3]. Black's queen's attack is blocked, and Black's g4 bishop is threatened.
2. his king wont find safety anywhere,
White's king is just in a safe position in the centre of the board, and can still qs. castle.
3. black has an extra pawn
Well, White has six points: one rook (5) and one pawn (1). Black has five points: one bishop (3), and two pawns (1) + (1). Isn't White winning in material terms by one pawn?
4. and 0-0 is safe for him,
I think you meant O-O, not 0-0. But, it's not necessary for White to ks. castle all the time. I usually castle qs. to connect the queen and the rook after developing the bishop and the horse and playing Qd2 after playing d4.
5. white has less development less space...
Is this a typo? or did you mean that this is an advantage for White? Because less of less is more, just like how -1 - -1 is more than just -1.
6. your best case scenario is this,
I would argue that [1. g4 a6 2. e3 a5 3. Bc4 a4 4. Qf3 a3 5. Qxf7#] is my best possible scenario, but if we're talking about the best reasonable scenarioes, then I would argue that [1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. b3 e5 4. d4] is an example of one of the best reasonable scenarioes, meaning that there is more than one good scenario.
7. otherwise "the game goes on" with white a pawn down
Question: are you against White offering gambits? There's the Danish Gambit Accepted [1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3] where White is far ahead in development, but Black is one pawn up on White. Is White losing in this case? Because White is farther in development.
White can also play [3. Bf3] to trade bishops. If Black accepts the trade [3. Bf3 Bxf3], White can develop their horse with [4. Nxf3]. White is down one pawn, but has developed a piece. (This time, I sacrificed a pawn to develop one of my own pieces. White is ahead positionally because Black must now play a move to develop. If Black denies the trade, then Black must make a move in retreat (backwards, into safer but less active positions), giving White extra time to develop with a move such as [5. d4], allowing White to control two diagonals.
8. this line isnt even close to being a win for white as you said, "To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game." -Savielly Tartakower
Okay. I have now made my sacrifice, and lost my piece. I didn't avoid it. Just like the Danish Gambit Accepted, I can now develop and control after trades or denied trades.
The position is not close to being a win for White because the game is not done yet.
In the case of Grob's Gambit Accepted, Fritz's Gambit Accepted, after White kicks and blocks through [6. f3], and Black's bishop moves somewhere, White can easily catch up through moves such as [7. Nc3], [7. Na3] (threatens the c4 pawn), [7. d3] (c4 pawn threat), [7. Qa4] (pins the horse and also threatens the pawn), [7. d4] (gives space for development for the bishop, en passant offer, otherwise blocks Black's horse on d7), and [7. b3] (c4 pawn threat).
With this line, after [6. f3], with White being up one point and easily able to make good development moves, I actually believe that White is in a winning position with right moves, but an easily blunder-able one too. I also think that it's too early to decide who's going to win yet in the game, anyways.
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Also, could you possibly find out who Grob's Gambit Accepted, Fritz's Gambit [1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4] is named after? Whenever I search "Who is Grob's Gambit Accepted, Fritz's Gambit named after?", the answers are always about Grob's Opening, Grob's Gambit [1. g4 d5 2. Bg2] or Englund's Gambit [1. d4 e5], which is not what I'm looking for. Any help would be appreciated.
To Ethan_Brollier (post #15):
It's completely possible to hold onto the pawn (with 2. e3). Developing the bishop instead of defending the pawn can be thought of as a sort of gambit, where Black's bishop is misplaced and can be kicked back later with pawn moves.
Ewww.
Ironically, for as many Grob fans there are out there, I haven't seen White's best option mentioned yet. It's still abysmal and also offers Black transposition to the slightly worse (but still winning) Fritz Grob Gambit lines, but White is doing better by the slimmest of margins.