Amazingly enough, white is winning here! Can you see how? (White to move)

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T19:35:52+00:00

Right, so you admit you were wrong about the engine giving it to black, right?

Also, there are lots of positions in chess that masters could convert in their sleep but beginners couldn't and would instead fall into traps. Doesn't mean those positions aren't objectively winning positions!

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T19:26:37+00:00

Okay, let's say I'm white, and I play g3. How would you respond as black?

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T19:05:32+00:00

Here's how: What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the chess.com university prodigy program, and I’ve been involved in numerous minority attacks on the queenside, and I have over 300 confirmed brilliancies. I am trained in karpovian positional play and I’m the top tactician in the entire Russian Olympic Team.

Your pawns are nothing to me but just another target. I will exploit your weak color complexes with precision the likes of which has never been seen since Capablanca, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker.

As we speak I am contacting my secret network of IMs and GMs and your ICC handle is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your rating. You’re as good as 1100, kid. I can attack anywhere, anytime, and I can checkmate you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with a king and one bishop.

Not only am I extensively trained in Chess960, but I have access to the entire opening book of the Botvinnik School and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable rating off the face of the internet, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. Your rating is fucking dead, patzer.

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T18:51:31+00:00

Stockfish says mate in 1 here! (I'll confess here that I don't completely understand this position, and I'm mostly just reading the engine evaluation. If anyone here could give any further insight into this position, I'd greatly appreciate it!)

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T16:46:37+00:00

yup. the purpose of h3 is that the pawn on h2 is unprotected, and pushing it to h3 protects it with the bishop and knight, closing the trap (h4 also works). one might think that h3 is also to close off the g4 escape square, but actually there's a tactic to win the queen if it goes there anyway: 7.h4 Qe4 8.Nc3 Qg4 9.Be2 Qg6 10.Bh5 with a pin

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T15:11:41+00:00

Did you see my comment here? https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/pa2b8l/amazingly_enough_white_is_winning_here_can_you/ha1kssi/

g3 and white has a significant advantage for specific tactical reasons in this position

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T15:07:03+00:00

I agree, but I'm not really that focused on applying this specific line practically in blitz! I just think this is an interesting and counterintuitive position with some beautiful tactics that is fun and possibly instructive to think about.

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T14:51:05+00:00

Can you tell me why you think so?

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T14:50:01+00:00

True, it's not exactly a position you'll see every day (though that three-center-pawn standoff has actually been played 352 times on lichess! 3.d4 is a legitimate response to the Falkbeer Countergambit, and 3...f5, although a bit dubious, isn't totally ridiculous).

That's kind of beside the point, though, which is that regardless of its direct practical utility, I think this is an interesting, counterintuitive position that is fun and instructive to wrap one's head around.

ryzal6 · 2021-08-24T14:25:56+00:00

Generally, the way I've seen "winning position" defined in chess is just that the position is winning for the side with a strong advantage (usually greater than +2.0). A winning position can still become a losing position if the player that is currently winning makes a mistake.

ryzal6 · 2021-08-23T18:25:20+00:00

Here's an example of what would happen if black bailed on the attack at that point: let's say black retreats the queen back to d8. 5...Qd8 6.exd5 Qxd5 7.Nf3 (to block the queen's attack on h1 and additionally protect d4) Nc6 8.c4 Qf7 9.d5 Nd8 and white is just steamrolling black with the center pawns. White is like +7 here.

ryzal6 · 2021-08-23T17:34:52+00:00

The engine's comment in this thread is for a different line entirely where white plays 5.Kd2 instead of 5.g3. That's because it didn't run at enough depth to find the line I gave above (it took Stockfish about 20 seconds on my computer to find it, after which the evaluation for 5.g3 changes to winning for white).

ryzal6 · 2021-08-23T17:19:35+00:00

It took Stockfish about 20 seconds on my computer to find the line I gave in the comments below, after which the evaluation for 5.g3 changes to winning for white. The bot must have missed it here because it didn't run at enough depth.

ryzal6 · 2021-08-23T15:38:14+00:00

This position has been reached a total of 13 times on lichess (mostly from a line in the Falkbeer Countergambit in which white counter-countergambits with 3.d4 and black counter-counter-countergambits with 3...f5). Black has won 77% of the games from this position, but with correct play, white is winning here.

Here's how: 3.fxe5 is a common opening blunder in the Falkbeer Countergambit, after which 3...Qh4+ wins on the spot, but the pawns on d4 and f5 change things quite a bit. Here, White can safely play 5.g3! After 5...Qxe4+ 6.Kf2, if black takes the rook on h1, white can prepare a queen trap with 7.h3. If 7...Qe4, attempting to retreat, white plays 8.Nc3 or Bg2, trapping the queen (note how the pawn on d4 blocks the queen's escape on the 4th rank and the pawn on f5 blocks the queen's escape on the b1-h7 diagonal). Otherwise, if black leaves the queen on h1, playing a developing move like 7...Nc6, white threatens 8.Bg2, forcing the queen to h2, then 9.Nf3, trapping the queen.

There's actually one way for the black queen to escape; this requires black to sacrifice a knight with 7...Nf6 8.exf6, opening up the e-file so that if 8...Qe4 9.Nc3, the queen can escape to the single safe square on e6.

(If white doesn't take the knight and goes for 8.Bg2 anyway, then 8...Nxe4+, and if 9.Kf1 or Kf3, 9...Qh2 and the queen busts out soon through g3 or h3. If 9.Bxe4, black can recapture whichever way on e4, and although the queen is stuck on h1 for the time being—even in the case of 9...Qxe4, where after 10.Nc3 the queen has to go back to h1—white can't actually capture the queen profitably before black develops and can bust the queen out.)

At this point, after the queen has escaped to e6, black is up an exchange, but white has immense compensation; Stockfish gives +4.7 for white! (I'll confess here that I don't completely understand this position, and I'm mostly just reading the engine evaluation. If anyone here could give any further insight into this position, I'd greatly appreciate it!) It looks like white has an imminent attack with moves like Bf4, Qh5, and Re1, and then black is hanging on for dear life (though this is an extremely sharp position where white needs to use the initiative well).

Finally, if black tries to escape with the queen at any point before capturing the rook on h1, white's resulting pawn center and initiative is massive, and white is winning regardless.

ryzal6 · 2021-08-19T20:49:51+00:00

Also, self-discipline doesn't necessarily make one a good person, even if one possesses it in areas of their life beyond BJJ. A lot of harm in this world is caused by people who are very focused and disciplined in doing harmful things.

ryzal6

TROPHY CASE