SC Week 4/6: How to Engine

 " 5 … Re8 (forced)"

Michael Stean

We need to talk about engines.

So let’s revisit Hecht - Forintos (Weak Pawns/1). I have to tell you that in the note to Black’s first move, when Stean says that after 1 … Bxg5, 2 Nxg5 d5, 3 Qh5 h6, 4 Nxh6+ gxh6, 5 Qxh6

Black is "forced" to play 6 … Re8,

it isn’t true. I know this because HIARCS  told me so.

Similarly, when considering Botvinnik - Szilyagi (Introduction/2) observation the note that Black "… dare not hit back with 13 … a5 because of 14 Ba6 followed by Nc4 or Nb3 with lots of dangerous possibilities on the a3-f8 diagonal", HIARCS ridicules Stean’s analysis and sees nothing to be scared of.

Or how about the note to Szilagyi’s 15th? Stean says "… I want to emphasise the point that before 15 … c5 Black merely had problems, but now he is lost."

HIARCS doubts White's even better.

I'm sure you'll find many more examples if you look. So what to do?

We can chuck Simple Chess straight into the bin, I suppose. Vow never again to buy a book published in 1978 BCE - Before Computer Era.

Or … we can ask whether any of this really matters.

I say it doesn’t. 

Yes, we should approach the text with a critical eye, but we should be doing that with any book, engine checked analysis or not.

The key point for me is that Stean is teaching how a human who is good at the game sees a chessboard. This is what I want to know.

Since Simple Chess appeared engines have come along and taught us that a lot of what we thought about the game was wrong. That doesn’t mean we will be able to play like them, though.

When there’s a discrepancy between what the book says and what our engines tell us, that’s an opportunity to enhance our understanding, sure. And the fundamental truths

that exposed kings are vulnerable to attack;

that it’s dangerous to leave a lot of wood on a diagonal controlled by an enemy bishop; 

that things will often end unhappily if we give away outposts in the centre;

remain.

And that's even before you start asking questions about the types of positions in which engines are at their best.