The Queens Gambit Accepted...Would you recommend it?

No. However, I generally have good results if it doesn't. I have ran into a few bumps in the road though.

14 centipawns? That's equal in my book.

Only if you have Houdini 2.

And according to Steinitz...

As far as I understand, Steinitz' theory claimed that the initial position is a perfect equilibrium, which is maintained by playing correct moves. Once one side makes a mistake, the other side has an advantage, which can only be kept if an attack is started. Starting an attack without pre-existing advantage would backfire.

Winning percentages for white are presumably better, following Steinitz that is, since white has the first move, the initiative and therefor can keep posing problems to black which have to be solved. If black starts making inadequate moves before he can gain the initiative, white can accumulate small advantages and eventually win.

On the other hand, if black plays solidly, he should always be able to draw, or win if white plays inadequately, applying the same principles of accumulating small advantages. 

That's what I make of it anyway...

edit: here is some stuff on his theory: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Wilhelm_Steinitz.aspx

"My cpu claims a 0.17 advantage so you're wrong pfren"

eww.  I feel bad for titled players that post on here, thanks for sticking around guys, I'm sure many of us (who may be silent) find your posts informative, I do.

Play e4 and not worry about it.

In my opinion, I usually play the Albin Countergambit and the Soller.

I like the open positions, flexibility, and attacking chances it gives me.

Pointing out a4 vs a3 is right, more power to you.

Saying there is an advantage because your computer reads .17 in the opening is just ridiculous.

In middlegames too though.  I'd always rather hear any player stronger than me talk about a position than a computer.  There are many practical considerations when making moves, and when dealing with centipawns, the evaluation is very rarely stable from move to move even on the same computer.  So quoting things like .17 (especially in the opening) is worthless.  As pfren pointed out his same engine gave a different readout.  Just for fun let me put it in my houdini....

It tells me 0.08  Here's a trick, tell us what it reads after Bxc4 Qxc4, I'm sure the computer foresaw those moves, but the eval with change regardless.  The position hasn't changed for the human but it has for the computer.  What's the difference?  The human is thinking in terms of a big picture, while the computer is limited by it's horizon.  Now who do you trust, an IM or a computer?  The computer just spits out a number.  Unless it's a mate in __, the number is worthless if you turn off your brain and don't look at the position.

And even if the eval was constant at 0.17 for the moves the computer gives as best (it never is but just pretending) due to practical considerations, 0.17 is a draw.

For humans and computers because we error more than that.  As info relevant to the readers of this thread especially (we error even more).  But it's also theoretically a draw because the drawing margin for any endgame is larger than a computer's 0.17

So even if the computer's evolution was correct just in it's own terms (it isn't) and you were talking theoretically (not to the forum posters) you would still be wrong.

 It's not so much about worshipping titled players as it is choosing to trust the judgement of an international master who has played hundreds of FIDE rated OTB games over that of the bullet junkie who's played none

I have an idea, why don't any of you who disagree with the IM, just set up a game and play from that position in correspondence. I am sure after a while, reality will set in.

You don't really get how artificial intelligence works, do you?

When the computer analyzies "the possibilities" to determine the best move out of all of the possibilities, there isn't anything it didn't consider if it is a top notch chess engine.

Great thing about QGA is that after move 2, all of White's preparation for Nimzo, KID, and many other systems is simply bypassed.  Too bad for white.

QGA is very solid.  Played by lots of GMs for many years.  Still is.  Kramnik, Kasparov, and Karpov have contributed to the development of several critical lines.  Lots of other currently active GMs have contributed to the development of the theory.

QGA dates back to about 1745, according to Cafferty and Hooper, "A Complete Defense to 1d4" (Pergamon, 1981).

You take the pawn, hold it if you wish (within the Two Knights Variation), and can "still feel good," when you give it back. 

Computer evaluations at move #2 surely aren't worth crap.  Society has has 260 years to work on this opening.  Much of the QGA theory still stands, and is being improved, by GMs and GM Centaurs.  Why should this surprise anyone?

Fairly recent book, James Rizzitano, "How to Beat 1) d4" (Gambit, 2005).  Worth the price of admission.

QGA kicks in at move #2, so you will surely get it a lot, in your OTB games.  And it's "Classical Chess," easy for all to learn.  What's not to like?

First of all, there are only a finite set of possibilities when calculating chess variations. I am willing to bet even if a program got rid of a particular part of algorithm/equation/variable to help it lets say be more efficient in a shorter timed game, it will still out think any person in terms of calculating variables and faster, no matter the position.

I am not saying that with less material/horrible position it can somehow come up with a combination to do what isn't mathematically possible, but if you are quibbling over a pawn difference between a man and a computer, unless it is Anand, Kasparov,or Tal,etc, my money is one the computer to win and no worse than draw. This is part of the reason I think it is absurd you arguing with an IM about this. I wouldn't probably take this much time to even entertain this if this was two 1200 players arguing this. I would probably shake my head and move on.

Haha, you are so full of it. So now a chess engine can know some things "by algorithm"? Just see if a sacrifice is worth calculating? Obviously an engine can't calculate untill infinity, but a few posts before there were moves that the engine didn't even consider, according to you.

Also, since you can't seem to argue without telling people to shut up or to get back under their bridge and can't seem to bother "reading half other people's bullshit", I doubt I will be continue to read this topic.

I love it how some people are self proclaimed experts on everything, are never wrong and should be blindly agreed with in any conversation. You appear to be one of them, although practically every statement you made about chess engines was utter crap. Believe this.

Look, I am not trying to force any of this into a hair splitting contest, but doesn't Pfren's answer to my quote that you replied to, give you a clue what I am trying to say. If you agree, he would beat you playing either side, playing from that starting position, would he only retain a pawn advantage using either color when he beat you? I realize this is subjective and like comparing apples to oranges, but the point is, he to me is more of an authority on how this plays out than you. He mentioned the human side of playing this position as compared to how a computer calculates the eveness and the final results. Haven't you ever seen a position that if played by two humans(equal skill), that 98% of the time, one side would win, but if you plug it into a good engine, its a draw everytime? To me its kind of like that and I think that is what he is trying to say.

Uhohspaghettio,

Here's what you asked/asserted earlier--

"And where exactly do you find anyone advocating taking the pawn and holding the pawn and fighting White to keep the pawn?"

So I clarified my post (#57), with, inter alia, the following--

You take the pawn, hold it if you wish (within the Two Knights Variation), and can "still feel good," when you give it back...

Personally, I wouldn't try to hang onto the pawn, because of the blizzard of complications in the Two Knights Variation.  Giving the pawn back is, of course, thematic for this opening.

Undoubtedly, Rybka or Houdini would be great for analysing both sides of the Two Knights Variation.  Looking forward to using Rybka on it, myself.

James Rizzitano (cited in earlier post) gives about 7 pages of sub-variations, covering move pairs #7 through #25, with Black holding onto the pawn (by design).

My "takeaway" (presently) from the earlier posts is--too many folks are asserting NEVER take the pawn at all, it's just a dumb move, according to Houdini, or Rosequeen1985 (a chronic "engine user," with a closed-out account).

And I read IM @prfren as asserting--"Black CAN try to hold onto the pawn, IF HE IS ADVENTUROUS" (emphasis added).  Seems perfectly reasonable to me.  And he provided two concrete examples.  Which you challenged via Houdini, of course.

I also recall reading (on a separate thread) a bunch of nasty posts between RoseQueen1985 and a NM, who had decided to stop playing online because of what he felt was "rampant engine use."

Too often our discussion threads produce "more heat than light."  Too bad for everyone, unfortunately.

I used to play QGA quite a lot.  Many of my opponents seemed VERY unprepared for it.  That was nice.   In a non-trival number of my games, they didn't get that pawn back. Their fault, not mine.  

I would also like to add that RoseQueen1985 was not a Rose Queen.