Stockfish Plays The Polish! A Masterclass vs Chess.com’s Max Engine
Today we will be pairing up Stockfish 13 (~3700 elo) against Chess.com’s max engine (3200 elo) to see just how powerful and dynamic the Polish Opening can be. Though opening with 1. b4 gives black a slight (-.5 evaluation reading)…
Today we will be pairing up Stockfish 13 (~3700 elo) against Chess.com’s max engine (3200 elo) to see just how powerful and dynamic the Polish Opening can be. Though opening with 1. b4 gives black a slight (-.5 evaluation reading) advantage from move one, the opening comes with plenty of surprise value and many flexible choices. The reason why black is considered to be slightly better is because white will usually lose their extra tempo from moving first by having to protect the b4 pawn, and because b4 doesn’t directly fight for the center. Will Stockfish 13 be able to make this somewhat dubious opening work?
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More on Alexey Sokolsky, the man who studied this opening and ultimately popularized it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Sokolsky
MUSIC:
Nocturne No.1 in B flat minor, Op.9 No.1 by Frédéric Chopin. More info on Chopin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin
SPOILER: The PGN for this game:
[Event “vs Computer”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2021.05.31”]
[Round “-“]
[White “StockfishChessBot”]
[Black “Komodo25”]
[Result “1-0”]
[CurrentPosition “6b1/1p4k1/5Q2/1PpN1B2/p1P5/P2P4/7P/6K1 b – – 4 46”]
[Timezone “UTC”]
[ECO “A04”]
[ECOUrl “https://www.chess.com/openings/Polish-Opening-Zukertort-System“]
[UTCDate “2021.05.31”]
[UTCTime “06:32:53”]
[WhiteElo “3700”]
[BlackElo “3200”]
[TimeControl “1/0”]
[Termination “StockfishChessBot won by checkmate”]
[StartTime “06:32:53”]
[EndDate “2021.05.31”]
[EndTime “07:02:20”]
[Link “https://www.chess.com/game/computer/1096025“]
1. b4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. a3 d5 4. e3 a5 5. b5 c5 6. d3 Nbd7 7. Nbd2 e5 8. e4 Bd6
9. exd5 Nxd5 {Critical move.} 10. Bb2 N7b6 11. c4 Nc7 12. g3 O-O 13. Bg2 f6 14.
O-O Be7 15. Ne1 a4 16. f4 exf4 17. gxf4 g6 ± 18. Kh1 Ne6 19. f5 Ng7 {INACCURACY
(+1.99) Critical mistake.} ({(+0.96) The best move was} 19… Nd4 20. fxg6 hxg6
21. Nc2 Nb3 22. Nxb3 axb3 23. Ne3 Na4 24. Qxb3 Bd6 25. Rae1 Nxb2 26. Qxb2 Be5
27. Qd2 Kg7 28. Nd5) 20. fxg6 hxg6 21. Qe2 Qc7 22. Rg1 g5 23. Nc2 f5 24. Ne3 Be6
25. Bh3 Qd7 26. Nf3 Rae8 27. Nxg5 Bf6 28. Qg2 Bxb2 29. Qxb2 Re7 30. Qg2 Nc8 31.
Raf1 Nd6 32. Qg3 Nh5 33. Qh4 Kh8 34. Qxh5+ Rh7 35. Qg6 Bg8 36. Nxh7 Bxh7 37. Qh6
Qe7 38. Nd5 Qf7 39. Qxd6 Rg8 40. Rxg8+ Bxg8 41. Rg1 Qg7 42. Qd8 Qxg1+ 43. Kxg1 □
Kh7 44. Bxf5+ Kh6 45. Qh4+ Kg7 □ 46. Qf6# 1-0
Chapters:
0:00-4:45 The Match
4:45-7:03 The Analysis
