Hoist with my own petard? A new move in the Exchange French
The other day I was preparing a summary sheet on the French for one of my students, and while looking through Powerbook 2008 within ChessBase 10, I came across a shocker. After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Nf3 Nf6, I was under the impression that 5.c4 would be the main move. It was well represented, but absolutely swamped, by a 3503-272 margin, by 5.Ne5. What?!
I'm far from being aware of all the sidelines in every opening - it's unlikely that even Kasparov and Anand know every sideline in every opening. But to be unaware of such a popular move in a reasonably common sideline? It took me a few seconds, but then I realized what was going on. ChessBase is handling the opening book in a fashion that's helpful in one way but misleading in two others. The first way it's misleading is that 5.Ne5 isn't ever played there; rather, 5.Ne5 transposes to a known position. (A slight exaggeration: 5.Ne5 shows up a whopping 22 times out of 4797 games in ChessBase's online database.) But that too is misleading. It's not that 5.Ne5 transposes to a position that White normally reaches, but one that occurs from the opposite side of the board:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5
The Petroff is a perfectly viable opening, but it's still better to have White there, not Black. To be fair, even though ChessBase doesn't explain that, one could still gather from the scoring percentages that White should avoid 5.Ne5 in the Exchange French. Still, users might wonder why the move is so popular, and think that it must be good, despite its scoring percentage, if its frequency so overwhelmed that of other moves. I'm not sure if this sort of error/misleading info occurs often enough to be a problem, but if it is, perhaps ChessBase ought to consider adding one or two notations in such cases: one indicating that it arises with colors reversed (at least a certain portion of the time), and a second indicating that it's a transpositional move.
Two comments, by way of tidying up. First, some of you might see the first position and think 5.Ne5 looks good, and then be led to wonder how Black could possibly stand worse (or at least have the burden of proving equality) in the Petroff. The answer is that the knight's advanced location isn't an unmitigated blessing. The opponent (let's assume it's a Petroff, so that would be White) can try to show that it's overextended, playing moves like Bd3, Re1 and c4. Sometimes White will also continue with Nc3 or Nbd2, and if Black captures, as he usually does, the knight will have left its fine post and exchanged itself off with a loss of time.
The second point returns to this post's title. A few weeks ago I (following Alex Baburin in Chess Today - it's his fault!) presented a similar "backwards" position, so it's only fair that I should be similarly afflicted. And then before that there was some April Fool's business...
I'm far from being aware of all the sidelines in every opening - it's unlikely that even Kasparov and Anand know every sideline in every opening. But to be unaware of such a popular move in a reasonably common sideline? It took me a few seconds, but then I realized what was going on. ChessBase is handling the opening book in a fashion that's helpful in one way but misleading in two others. The first way it's misleading is that 5.Ne5 isn't ever played there; rather, 5.Ne5 transposes to a known position. (A slight exaggeration: 5.Ne5 shows up a whopping 22 times out of 4797 games in ChessBase's online database.) But that too is misleading. It's not that 5.Ne5 transposes to a position that White normally reaches, but one that occurs from the opposite side of the board:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5
The Petroff is a perfectly viable opening, but it's still better to have White there, not Black. To be fair, even though ChessBase doesn't explain that, one could still gather from the scoring percentages that White should avoid 5.Ne5 in the Exchange French. Still, users might wonder why the move is so popular, and think that it must be good, despite its scoring percentage, if its frequency so overwhelmed that of other moves. I'm not sure if this sort of error/misleading info occurs often enough to be a problem, but if it is, perhaps ChessBase ought to consider adding one or two notations in such cases: one indicating that it arises with colors reversed (at least a certain portion of the time), and a second indicating that it's a transpositional move.
Two comments, by way of tidying up. First, some of you might see the first position and think 5.Ne5 looks good, and then be led to wonder how Black could possibly stand worse (or at least have the burden of proving equality) in the Petroff. The answer is that the knight's advanced location isn't an unmitigated blessing. The opponent (let's assume it's a Petroff, so that would be White) can try to show that it's overextended, playing moves like Bd3, Re1 and c4. Sometimes White will also continue with Nc3 or Nbd2, and if Black captures, as he usually does, the knight will have left its fine post and exchanged itself off with a loss of time.
The second point returns to this post's title. A few weeks ago I (following Alex Baburin in Chess Today - it's his fault!) presented a similar "backwards" position, so it's only fair that I should be similarly afflicted. And then before that there was some April Fool's business...