Only a slight advantage given by the engine?!

                  White to play.

How is white not clearly better?  Long term, it seems as though white should be doing great.Only have given up a pawn for the exchange in a rather safe and solid position, it should be a big edge (.8 or larger advantage). 

I suspect white's plan lays in b4-b5 because any central pawn break is very unlikely with e4 so well defended.

The engine (stockfish here) barely gives a .1 edge if not equal (0.00) position for white.

May anyone explain this evaluation? 

Anyone care to give this a whirl? This is definitely the most annoying evaluation I've seen come out of an engine recently.

The explanation is ... Stockfish is an idiot.

Engines are great for checking for tactics within their search horizon. They suck at everything else. They beat Humans because no Human can play tactically perfect chess, but they have no concept of long-range strategy or positional compensation.

It seems kind of hard for white to come up with any kind of plan that would put pressure on black, though. Whereas somehow I could imagine black trying to bring his pieces to some area of the board, (kingside queenside or center) and maybe creating some threats. It just looks like white's rooks will sit for a really long time and not take control of the game. Quite a passive position for white, and not much space.

On the flip side, one issue the engine has with these kinds of positions is that it doesn't realize that once things get simplified, white will be doing very well, even winning if there is enough of it. So I would be curious if you played out the position some more, if white's evaluation would gradually increase.

I have a hard time believing that black's position could really be that bad, though. There is not a whole lot white can do, except hope for trades. And I'm not sure that's something he can necessarily force. If black can get the initiative somewhere, that might get him enough compensation for the exchange. If black just lets white trade everything with no strings attached, that's bad for him, but he doesn't have to be compliant at all.

"They suck at everything else."

There are a lot of uses for an engine that don't suck at all. It's just something you have to be careful with.

It's definitely not a large advantage for white! I don't see how that works - in fact, it's a position I'd rather play with black, because the moves are easier!

Remember that the exchange isn't even worth 2 "pawns", so if the exchange were the only factor, yeah, it might be like +0.8 or something.

But black's pawn structure is really well suited to limiting the activity of the rooks, and helps his knights and dark-square bishop be quite active. I can imagine black regrouping his pieces and advancing on the kingside (opening the centre might be a little risky). Anyways, as of this moment, black's pieces are more active than white's, so he actually has a temporary activity advantage as well.

Also, what does white do to activate his rooks? It's very hard, because your plan of advancing on the queenside will leave a lot of light squared weaknesses, good for the knights. 

Also, I wouldn't say that engines are stupid positionally. That might have been the case a long time back, but top engines these days are really good positionally too! I would say = is a pretty good evaluation. 

man... this is so obvious.

The way I see it, if you're down an exchange, it's only worse for you if the opponent can make the rook better than your minor piece without having to give up a lot of concessions. For example, if you can keep a position super closed, the rook may be worse! There are many positional sacrifices that take this into account.

Even if you have a queen for a knight, the queen is only better if it can be used more actively  but this is like in 99% of positions. I would argue that the relative value of pieces is determined by the ratio of positions where one is better than the other. And that's also why I think Bishops are better than Knights, but lol that's a whole different story.

"The way I see it, if you're down an exchange, it's only worse for you if the opponent can make the rook better than your minor piece without having to give up a lot of concessions."

Yes, a very good point.

However, something that complicates the battle of material is that there is the short-term and the long-term. In fact, for much of the opening and middlegame, the minor pieces really are better than the rooks in the most direct sense -- they are doing more, they are probably not blocked in as much, etc. Yet, ironically, it would still be incorrect to give up the exchange in 95% of those positions! And that's because, the higher activity the minor pieces enjoy may not be enough to achieve anything concrete, and so they may just let trades go on and gradually get into an endgame, where the rook is almost always better, and much better at that -- it usually completely dominates the minor piece in simplified, queenless positions.

So I think where InfiniteFlash is coming from is that, because white's position is so safe, he can gradually look forward to a much more simplified position somewhere in the distant future. Maybe black's pieces are good, but that won't necessarily mean he can stop this plan satisfactorily, because white's position might be too solid for black to launch a counterattack.

That's what makes these positions tough to assess. I think we'd all agree that black's minor pieces are better than the white rooks right now, and yet, the advantage of being up the exchange often doesn't have much to do with that, oddly enough. But I would say that white's dream of just getting everything traded off is pretty far fetched. What if black just avoides trades? And like I said if black gets some initiative going, maybe with a kingside advance, it's not clear white's rook will be such a useful defender in such a situation, nor will white's rook necessarily generate sufficient counterplay.

So in theory, white is on the road to winning, but in practice, black's pieces are so good and his structure is so sound, there's no reason to think that he has to passively allow this without creating his own counterplay.

Even so, I would personally slightly prefer white. I get the feeling that black's play isn't that dangerous either and black will always have to make sure he doesn't allow white to simplify. But there is certainly a lot to be argued for black's position -- his structure and pieces are both excellent, and that alone should be enough to give him a decent position. If either side lets the other achieve their plans, they will drift into trouble. The better player will probably win.

"Remember that the exchange isn't even worth 2 "pawns", so if the exchange were the only factor, yeah, it might be like +0.8 or something."

By that logic, being down the exchange for a pawn should be +.2 for the side down the exchange, everything else being equal (I'm taking to mean, "only factor" as just a clear exchange for nothing else). Which is not the case.

7 pawns means the extra rook is diminished in value.

No open files means the extra rook is diminished in value.

No pawn break for white means the position is basically equal.

In a real game where black doesn't understand that, and e.g. allows something like b5, probably white's position is much better.

That's my initial quick evaluation.

But just because there is not an open file now, doesn't mean there won't be one later.

For example move the d6 knight to d7 and one of the following:

Bishop from f8 to g7
Pawn from f5 to f7

First helps white play b5
2nd helps white play e4

In both cases white is clearly better.

Light square blockade. In defense minors trump heavies the same way that pawns trump minors. I don't see how white overcomes the extra minor piece and extra pawn 

b5 is always a potential break, and now that I'm thinking of it, f3 followed by e4 doesn't seem like such a bad plan, at least, another tool in white's kit. In fact if white could get it in soundly, that could really blow things open, that seems better than a b5 break. But in any case, it'll be a grind.

So in other words, the fact that black has two breaks to prevent at all times, gives him something to think about long-term. That, as well as, a lasting fear of the minor pieces ever coming into contact and trading each other off.

f3 e4 is pretty optimistic. Black has 5 (!) defenders on e4 in the diagram. And potentially black can remove the c3 knight with the bishop.

Actually if black can manage that, my guess is the light square blockade is invincible because like I said before minors trump heavies in defense, and without the c3 knight white only has one minor to challenge black's 2 knights.