Seth_Xoma wrote on 02/09/09 at 03:21:05:


At this point, I am thinking you cloud be wrong.  

I believe there is real jeopardy that this drivel will chase away the strongest players, make them less inclined to participate, and ultimately be a bad thing for the site in general.

There are plenty of free sites for people to play chess.  Good chess, lousy chess, sloughter chess.  This is really not the venue to waste server space over such asinine pursuits as this has become insult to most everyone here, save those that enjoy train wrecks and the carnage, human and inanimate, that they consume.

I have always been in favor of euthanasia, and this is a strong case for a state sanctioned version (CPub Mods pulling the life support).

I hope the site gets back to chess theory, at whatever pace it may move, glacial or otherwise, and that this carnival is closed by the Board of Health and the people of PETA for reason of inhumane cruelty to animals.

sloughter wrote on 02/09/09 at 11:41:36:


Not that it has any significance until you beat Arkhein's 11...Qc7, but I'd play 12...Ng4 for the fun of it.

sloughter wrote on 02/08/09 at 18:07:30:

It's ironic that you should say that, because the point of my post was to try to get you to realise that your "When you don't have the facts on your side, argue the law" waffle was "clever" repartee with no substance.

You want me to cite an example of your faulty analysis. The problem is that analysis is subjective. (Just for example) if you say "1. a4 is good" and I say "No, it's bad because I can play 1... a5 and that's good for Black", you can still disagree with my evaluation of the position. The only worthwhile evaluation of analysis is the test of time: go away and play it in games, get it noticed by other people, and hope that eventually it will be played enough for the statistics to give you at least a rough idea of how good it is.

Because it's inevitable that analysis produced by one person is biased by their own preferences. At every move you have decisions to make, and if you're analysing, you have to make decisions for both sides. Even if the Two Knights is unsound, proving it is too big a task for one person. In order for your analysis to be convincing, you'd have to find the best moves for Black at every juncture, and prove they were best -- which means considering alternatives in equal depth. And the problem is that -- often subconsciously -- you reject better moves because they look or feel worse to you. This isn't a criticism of you; it's true of all players. (Indeed, the Two Knights provides my own favourite example. After 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 b5 the best move 6. Bf1 is almost impossible to "see" unless you know about it beforehand, which is why 5... b5 was a favourite weapon of mine in the days when I used to play OTB chess regularly.)

But equally, the opposite task, the task you're asking me to do, the task of proving that Black can equalise against White's best play, is too big a task for one person, because I would have to find White's best move at every juncture, and I'm not a good enough player or analyst to think I could achieve that. So I'm not going to flap my arms just to give you the pleasure of watching me make mistakes. Instead, I'll sit back and watch you make mistakes, which you will do if you keep on insisting you can prove the assertions you're making.

Anyway, I don't really care if you refute the Two Knights, and why should I? I'm still going to play it and I'm still going to win with it. And lose, sometimes, but then I win some and lose some with any opening. I don't know what the result would be if I were to play the Two Knights against you, but that's because I don't know what your overall strength as a player compared to mine is. (I'm very interested in watching your game against Arkhein, though. I still think you're missing the main point of the game, which is not to refute one subvariation of a subvariation, but to bring home the lesson that you attach too much importance to material advantage, and therefore the lines where you bring the analysis to a halt and say "White is simply better" may bear further study.)

ArKheiN wrote on 02/08/09 at 22:09:18:


If sloughter wishes, I can give more evidence that his line is trash by going for 11...0-0 instead.