White should win or draw ALWAYS when ____________

ok you should know that the poisoned pawn variation favors BLACK slightly, be3 seems like whites best choice........, but even then chess.com has games from the early 18th and 19th centuries LOL, but still, black really has no trouble in the najdorf, once people find the answers to the najdorf it will be settled...., but theory favors black so far

Statistics have shown that some lines in sicilian(najdorf and kan mainly), black have almost the same chance to win as white. Some varaitions are very bad for black, the dragon and the acc dragon have very bad odds for black but are somehow still popular (also its a myth that dragon is good to play if you are in need of a win, it have less winning chances than najdorf or kan). Im currently learning the kan variation since najdorf is too much theory

There is a reason that almost all the supergms plays d4, avoiding sicilian. Against d4, blacks best alternative is to go Nf6 and nimzo indian (if white allows), which have far better odds for black than the most common d5. 

I will only play openings that are statisticly good. Statistics doesnt lie!

This is still a hotly contested line (the poisoned pawn) so again seems like you're just saying stuff to say it, however you got this stuff in your head about black having an advantage, I dunno but you're wrong... you even say yourself you're wrong when you observe that white should win or draw with best play.

Otherwise you're making claims no one would back you up on, not computers, not top GMs, you're just trolling.

Don't feed the troll...

Except, of course, that's not true. I don't know why bit of sillyness keeps getting repeated. 1.e4 is still played very often by GMs and SuperGMs. Just because it wasn't played in the Anand-Topalov World Championship match doesn't mean no GMs play it. Seriously, go look it up. It's still about 50/50. Hell, Carlsen won a match recently with the bloody King's Gambit! Don't say 1.e4 isn't played.

Well, that's because the opponent played e5 instead of c5, which is why I went to 1. Nf3. 

Maybe the fact that white moves first is like tipping your hand in poker. You are giving the opponent the information he/she needs prior to his/her first move. Either way, with perfect play and the initiative white should always win/draw.

1) GM's have been avoiding 1. e4 because the Petroff has been such a stubborn draw machine and at the top a draw with Black is considered acceptable these days.

2) IF and this is a big if, we can use top level computer play as a guideline than the advantage of the first move is very significant. However pragmatically speaking just because we have opening theory in a line- you cannot assume that theory is perfect play- far from it in fact.

3) The najdorf continues to be one of the most hotly contested openings for top level engine chess and evaluations on positions swing back and forth practically every day.

GM's dont play e4 b4ecause they're afraid of the Petroff? Man, live and learn....

...when black is a voter intimidating panther.

Rooperi -think first, then post. The Petroff has been an extremely effective drawing weapon for Kramnik, Gelfand, etc. It is no accident that at the top play has moved to d4 - thus avoiding the Petroff, the Berlin defense and the Marshall Attack in the Ruy. If White could be sure to face the Sicilian, you would see a lot more top level e4 games.

Well, maybe you should think too.

There have been a few posts recently which claimed that e4 is out of favor. But here are the facts, from TWICS databases over the past 2 years:

( I assume you realise that TWICS contain all the highest level games played)

Out of 243000 games, 120000 started e4 (49.3%), and 83500 (34.2%) with d4.

So, clearly e4 is still the the choice for most top level players.

Of the 120000 e4 games, only 22000 reached 1 e4 e5 2Nf3

(The vast majority of e4 games are Sicilians, not e5)

Of these 22000 games,  2500 were Petroffs (11.5%)

So, what you base your argument on, is not really clear to me. The Petroff is no more than a curiosity at top level, occuring on average approx. 1/100 games, about the same frequency as Alekhine's Defense.

The Najdorf doesn't favor Black with perfect play lol...

If both sides play perfectly, the game would be drawn in a sound, respected opening such as the Open Sicilian in general.

If anything, White has an (arguably) easier time starting an attack on Black's king...

+Perfect play doesn't even matter at the sub-2600 level

And I wouldn't advise the Morra either as this line favors black for sure with 'Perfect' play.

Rooperi- No offense, but using TWIC is not gonna cut it.

Let me list some reasons why

1) TWIC is great, but assuming you are just taking the raw games, you haven't filtered out anything which means a lot of non GM games and games where the rating imbalance will throw off anything meaningful. A gm will play practically anything vs someone 300 pts lower.

2) Even if you could do something as crude as a generic database dump, filtered to only let's say 2600 gm vs gm games or better- this wouldn't be meaningful considering it only takes ONE key game to shut down an entire line. This means from then on you will see very few games in that variation until White has found an improvement.

3) So lets improve your database even more- lets only look at 2700+ players and look at games where White has to win and Black is ok with a draw. When White opens with 1.e4 what % of games do you think have been a Petroff in the last 2 years? What % of those games has White managed to win? This would be valuable and convincing information if White was scoring say 55% (the norm for GM play) or better.

4) Considering Kramnik and Gelfand both use the Petroff as their "main" defense to 1.e4 I would hardly call that a curiosity. When Magnus Carlsen starts playing the Alekhine as his main defense vs e4 then you can call them comparable openings.

OK, for both players rated over 2700:

There are 2254 games where both players were over 2700

1 e4 is still (slightly more popular than 1 d4. 43.8% vs 42.7%.

This is important, it proves that top players are NOT avoiding 1e4.

At this level, 1... e5 is more popular than the Sicilian (a surprise to me)

There are 471 games, with 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3

366 times Black replied Nc6, 105 times Nf6. So, you are correct, in this elevated company there are a few more Petrroff fans, 22% (about 5% of total games.)

While black certainly does get more draws with Nf6 than with Nc6, he also gets more losses, fewer wins. I don't think these guys fear the Petroff.

    Move   ECO       Frequency    Score  AvElo Perf AvYear %Draws
 1: Nc6    C44a      366: 77.7%     56.6%  2744    2688   2009   56%
 2: Nf6     C42a      105: 22.2%     60.0%  2741    2666   2009   67%
_______________________________________________________________
TOTAL:               471:100.0%   57.4%  2743  2688  2009   58%

Here's all Kramnik's games with the Petroff since April 2008:

Player Report


Player: "Kramnik, V" with the Black pieces after  1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 (20 games)
Database: [clipbase] (115 games)
ECO: C42a [Russian Game (Petroff Defence)]
Generated by Scid 4.0, 2010.08.12

1. Statistics and History

1.1 Statistics

                   Games     1-0     =-=     0-1    Score
-----------------------------------------------------------
 All report games     20       4      12       4    50.0%
-----------------------------------------------------------

1.2 Oldest games

  1:  0-1(62) Navara 2672 - Kramnik 2788, Prague CZE 2008.05.14
  2:  1-0(42) Naiditsch 2624 - Kramnik 2788, Dortmund GER 2008.07.01
  3:  1-0(49) Ivanchuk 2740 - Kramnik 2788, Dortmund GER 2008.07.06
  4:  =-=(28) Ivanchuk 2781 - Kramnik 2788, Moscow RUS 2008.08.22
  5:  =-=(31) Naiditsch 2678 - Kramnik 2772, Dresden GER 2008.11.17

1.3 Newest games

  1:  =-=(112) Ivanchuk 2748 - Kramnik 2790, Nice FRA 2010.03.24
  2:  1-0(45) Anand 2790 - Kramnik 2788, Wijk aan Zee NED 2010.01.30 [1]
  3:  =-=(51) Shirov 2723 - Kramnik 2788, Wijk aan Zee NED 2010.01.29
  4:  =-=(63) Short 2696 - Kramnik 2788, Wijk aan Zee NED 2010.01.23
  5:  =-=(31) Caruana 2675 - Kramnik 2788, Wijk aan Zee NED 2010.01.18

1.4 Most frequent opponents

  1:   3  2008-2010  67%  2781  Ivanchuk, V
  2:   3  2008-2009  50%  2697  Naiditsch, A
  3:   2  2009-2010 100%  2791  Anand, V [1]
  4:   2       2009  50%  2761  Radjabov, T
  5:   1       2009  50%  2760  Jakovenko, D
  6:   1       2009   0%  2730  Gashimov, V

2. Ratings and Performance

2.1 Games with highest average rating

  1:  1-0(45) Anand 2790 - Kramnik 2788, Wijk aan Zee NED 2010 [1]
  2:  =-=(28) Ivanchuk 2781 - Kramnik 2788, Moscow RUS 2008
  3:  1-0(30) Anand 2791 - Kramnik 2759, Nice FRA 2009
  4:  =-=(112) Ivanchuk 2748 - Kramnik 2790, Nice FRA 2010
  5:  1-0(49) Ivanchuk 2740 - Kramnik 2788, Dortmund GER 2008
  6:  =-=(26) Radjabov 2761 - Kramnik 2759, Nice FRA 2009
  7:  =-=(56) Jakovenko 2760 - Kramnik 2759, Dortmund GER 2009
  8:  =-=(53) Radjabov 2756 - Kramnik 2759, Baku AZE 2009

3. Moves and Themes

3.1 Openings

  1: C40-C49  20  50%

That is interesting rooperi, I also thought d4 was a bit more popular, but I thought it was because the sicilian... I'm also surprised 1...e5 is more common.  How did you get these stats, from chessbase or something?

Rooperi - I apprecciate your effort in digging up those stats- let me briefly respond to a couple of them.

1) I think it would be more telling to use Kramnik's stats including 2007 since it included the 2007 Championship which was a very good test of what top gm's favored. Kramnik had +4 -5 = 32 for 2722 elo performance- he drew 78% of his games with Black! That is a highly effective defense. 2 of the 5 losses came in Kramnik's worst tournament in memory - Dortmund...

2) Look at say 1990-2007 and see how many games white opens 1.e4 with players over 2700. Results;

White opened 1.e4 2254 games 1. d4 1374 games - this is what I am saying.. the shift towards d4 is obvious.

There was a guy named Fischer who blew up Najdorf after Najdorf after Najdorf, spectacularly. He re-wrote the opening book for White.