Silicon Road: Engine Openings! Stockfish's Opening Repertoire #2 1.e4 c5
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- This video is in our Engine Openings series and is also the second in a series of videos on the opening repertoire of Stockfish. This video provides a detailed examination of Stockfish's 1.e4 repertoire against the Sicilian. Openings covered: Najdorf, Dragon, Sveshnikov, Rossolimo, Paulsen, Kan.
Check out matthewsadler.... for a summary article of this video series. Also check out cloudserver.che... for the PGNs of all the material covered in this series.
I’m grandmaster Matthew Sadler, a 2-times British Champion, and ranked in the world’s top 50 for many years. I’m also a prolific author.
My latest book - The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement - which came out in October 2021 is, just like this channel, all about learning from and training with engines. My previous book, the award-winning Game Changer - written together with Natasha Regan - brought the amazing chess games of DeepMind’s AlphaZero to the world.
The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement is available from here:
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"Game Changer" came out on 20th January 2019 and won the prestigious ECF Book of the Year and FIDE Book of the Year prizes for 2019! The Game Changer chess book is available in print and digital versions from these links:
newinchess.com/... (Paperback English edition)
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Silicon Road: Engine Openings! Stockfish's Opening Repertoire #2 1.e4 c5
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Check out matthewsadler.me.uk/ for a summary article of this video series. Also check out cloudserver.chessbase.com/MTIyMTYx/replay.html for the PGNs of all the material covered in this series.
At 10:40, white plays a3, which seems mysterious to me. I know that in IQP positions this is usually played to prevent black from accessing Nb4, where the knight controls the blockade square and could interfere with a Bc2-Qd3 battery, but after black played a6, white gave up the bishop with Bxc6. What did white gain from not immediately playing Bxc6, as a3 a6 inclusion doesn't seem so helpful?
Well ...a6 is worse than a3 I think: unprotects some more queenside dark squares (b6) and takes away the a6-square from the light-squared bishop. It's not very much but a3 is also useful against other development attempts with Black.
I'd seen Nakamura play 6.Bd3 against MVL's Najdorf in a blitz match some time ago, but didn't think much of it at the time. Definitely going to give that one another look!
Yes definitely worth it! I've been wheeling it out in blitz recently! 😊
Hi Matt, very interesting analysis from Stockfish, especially in the Taimanov with 7.g4! Almost rocked me out of the chair with the pawn sac. I do have an interesting question: I noticed in my analysis that Stockfish prefers to play the Keres Attack in the Scheveningen with 6. g4 h6 7. Rg1 Nc6 8. Be3!? (avoiding h4 altogether) a6 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. Qf3!? and Black's position does look rather uncomfortable to say the least, with the typical d5/h5 pawn breaks seeming less effective with the pieces activated rather early. I was wondering if this corroborated with your analysis? Has Stockfish finally cracked the Scheveningen at long last?!
Hey TI, all the engines are very keen on these Nxc6 ideas against Scheveningen structures: there were some games from the TCEC SuperFinal a few seasons ago where the engines fought out these structures and it looked very good for White - I analysed the Stockfish White win in quite some depth in "The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement" They particularly like anything with Nxc6 once Black has played ...a6. Not sure the Scheveningen has been cracked, but definitely a way of playing against it found that human players tended to reject automatically! Best Wishes, Matthew
Hello, SF17 has been released, and it seems that SF prefers 2. ...Nc6 more than 2. ...d6. For the e4 e5 opening, Italian is comparable with Spanish. May you check it with more powerful computers? Thanks a lot!
Ah yes it's hard to keep up - every release has a slightly different view on things! Might be time for another opening series soon!
Amusing to hear engine named Koivisto. Clearly they've some finn(s) in their team. Mauno Koivisto was long time polician - two time prime minister and ninth president of Finland.
Yes indeed: koivisto-chess.com/index.php#info1-2f 😊 There was also a Finnish footballer in the Women's Euros called Koivisto 😊
@@SiliconRoadChess It's quite a common surname in Finland. If there is 600 finns, one of them is Koivisto or something like that. Most of them are from western part of Finland.
And Vs Clasical Sicilian? does it want the bb5 bg5 qd3 system?
Mmm... don't think I looked regularly at the Classical System.