Why is the polish opening so good yet never played?

Why does no one play the polish? On Lichess its winrate is higher than e4 or d4 and it has great opportunities for tactics that can easily bring someone to quadruple digits in elo. My opponents almost always blunder the opening and when they don't I advance the b-pawn and they fall apart anyway. The theory is so simple yet so sharp, Why does no one play this?

Correction: On lichess the winrate is marginally higher than d4 and e4 below 2000. In the master's database the winrate is much worse and the lossrate is much greater.

The reason for this is that lower level players are less likely to know the proper refutation for certain moves. Looking at one move on lichess doesn't necessarily tell it's quality. When you look one move deeper, the move may do well against a common innaccuracy or blunder but poorly against the refuting move.

The Polish is playable but it's slightly better for black. At lower levels this slight advantage won't make much of a difference as an amateur player may often struggle to convert a winning position.

A recent discussion on 1 b4. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/sokolsky-opening-has-anyone-had-success-persisting-with-the-lines

The reason nobody plays it is because it literally has to be your whole repertoire as White, and that's far too much commitment for 99.99% of players. It also doesn't help that there are better first moves: (1. c4, 1. Nf3, 1. d4, 1. e4). Another issue is that it isn't popular at all, so most people don't even know it exists, and by the time people do learn it exists, they've already picked openings and lines that suit them, and if for some reason they haven't yet, it still takes a very special type of person to play 1. b4.

The Polish is actually better for White, it's merely less better than the four best moves (1. c4, 1. Nf3, 1. d4, 1. e4). There aren't any top GMs that have popularized the opening, so the theory hasn't been pushed to its full potential yet. This is a rather big issue, as you get the low-level problem of every game and position being different as nobody plays theory, but since the opening is only good and not great, it's nigh unpunishable. If the opening ever gains traction at the top level I could see it becoming a massive threat at some point.

Because your basis is the statistics of chess imbeciles.

It is sound, as in not refuted, but it gives White no advantage.  The exchange variation fully equalizes for Black immediately 1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 (2.a3 d5 =/+) 2.Bxb4 =

He must be using one of the new ChatGPT-based engines.

I like Polish and play it often. Thanks for shared link.

1. b4

It is also called the Orangutan or the Sokolsky.

Since the engine evaluation is in the minuses. Also practically speaking (for human players), black is winning more games than white in this line.

All white has achieved is that they spent 2 moves to trade a flank pawn for a centre pawn while black has developed 2 pieces and is ready to castle.

Polish / Urangutan / Sokolsky opening is playable with a few characteristic tactics, but unless you play the main modern line I find the overall thing to be a bit superficial and stale - it doesn't really have its own system but you always end up in variations of another opening system but now with some awkwardness in queenside configuration.

You only look at the engine evaluation. What's also important is the practicality for human players. This is visible in the score ratio which shows that black is winning more games.

It's not a common opening move. Most players want to open up the bishop and/or queen with 1.d4 or 1.e4.

The Polish/Ourangatan/Sokolsky is about objectively equal. It's not popular at higher levels because it does not pose any serious problems for Black; it just imbalances the game in an interesting way. Black has a lot of choice in how they want to play against it and doesn't have to go into theoretical stuff in order to equalize (i.e. Black does not need to play 1. ... e5, there are many other great choices for Black).

Is it a fun and interesting opening? For sure. Can you beat people if you have more experience with the positions? Sure. Is it the best opening? Certainly not!

We are using all master level games from 1952 to 2023. The number of games from said position is 615. Of all 615 games the winrate was W17%/D57%/B26%.

The move which appears to give white the best chances is Nf3 but if we look deeper into these lines the typical result still shows that black is winning more games.

In any good opening, white should always have a higher winrate than black or at least equal winrates. If white is losing more games then that indicates there is an issue with the opening as players with the white pieces are frequently struggling to play this position.

This paired with the fact that the engine doesn't like it shows that it's an inferior opening. If you want to try to run a higher depth evaluation to see what it says, then be my guest.

You seem like you really want to die on this hill just for the sake of being a contrarian lol. Pipe it down dude.

This is untrue. The Sokolsky is not that difficult to learn and many of the lines can transpose to 1. d4 openings. It's actually a pretty easy opening to learn and a lot of the time you can play it like a system (against quite a few setups you can play b4, Bb2, Nf3, e3, c4, Be2, O-O, and then things will vary depending on what Black has done (sometimes you want to play d4, sometimes not because it blocks your bishop. Sometimes you want Nc3, sometimes Nbd2, sometimes Na3 -> Nc2).

This only really leaves the 1. b4 e5 setups, of which there are only really two main ones: 2. Bb2 Bxb4 and 2. Bb2 f6.

There are a few trick setups that you have to know about (like 1. b4 c6 2. Bb2 Qb6) but they're generally bad for Black to play.

Overall, the Sokolsky is a fine secondary weapon for a 1. d4 player to use against opponents where they want to avoid theory (ex: significantly higher-rated opponents). It's also a fine primary weapon for players who don't like opening theory and much prefer endgames.

Lmao, are you still salty about the closed Sicilian thing? That's funny.

"Polish opening isn't good. Closed Sicilian isn't as good."

darkunorthodox88:

You ask a lot of questions but fail to give your own analysis.

We can look at all the deeper variables and try to find the best ideas for white or mistakes for black within the lines. Nf3 appears to give some better chances for white and can start to look hopeful but that hope is shattered when you also realise you have to consider black's best ideas.

The Polish is somewhat playable if you enjoy that type of thing but it's an inferior opening.

He likes to play the offbeat stuff, so he will defend it almost dogmatically. To his credit, in order to play these kinds of openings well, you have to be rather creative to find lines where you can trick your opponent. That becomes increasingly tricky as engines get stronger.

I think the Polish opening gained popularity through strong bots like it seems to me Alphazero. 

The problem is that a strong bot does not play with a human method but manages to be efficient due to its computing power and "memory capacities" that a human cannot match.  

In short I think this opening is not so played by humans because humans rather play with a chess culture and prefer to fall into game patterns they know or understand better. 

Yeah, I can tell. He called me a chimp because I said his favourite opening wasn't good lol.

You can maybe outplay your opponent but that doesn't mean the opening is good. It's like the Stafford Gambit. We all know the Stafford Gambit isn't right but it does better than it should do on the lichess database because everyone who plays it has probably looked at Eric Rosen's study.

Eric Rosen admits it's bad but he's heavily revised with computer analysis all the possible lines, deviations, traps and mistakes to make it work. Naturally it doesn't work and if opponent knows the same things then it doesn't work.