Engine-assisted game vs Stockfish, move 13 discussion

[MooMoo2]

The most popular move on the move 12 poll was ...Bg7. Stockfish played 13. Bd3, and the FEN is:
r1bqk2r/5pbp/p1np4/1p1Npp2/4P3/N1PB4/PP3PPP/R2QK2R b KQkq - 2 13

Game so far: 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bf4 e5 8. Bg5 a6 9. Na3 b5 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Nd5 f5 12. c3 Bg7 13. Bd3

Depth: 49 ply. Nodes searched: 2,384,023,466k (~2384 G)

[WMHalsdorf]

13...Ne7 looks promising in this position as it offers several possibilities of removing whire's knight on d5.

[gd_barnes]

I agree. I like Ne7 here and there are some favorable lines for us in the opening DB that I am looking at. I will be home from a business trip on Friday and will let Komodo take a look at it.

[firejuggler]

Wouldn't that provoque the immediate taking of our knight by white one?

[WMHalsdorf]

Originally Posted by firejuggler

Wouldn't that provoque the immediate taking of our knight by white one?

That is one possibility that improves out center square position.

[gd_barnes]

Komodo likes 13...Be6 here and it is by far the most played in the opening DB. After further looking I think I like Be6 better than Ne7 where we end up sacking a pawn in a number of lines. In response to Ne7 Komodo apparently came up with a couple of lines for white that are better than are shown in the opening DB. I don't have time to post an analysis tonight. I will do so sometime tomorrow.

I think that the choice is clearly between Be6 and Ne7 (and to a lesser extent f4) but I'd like to suggest that we hold off on voting until more analysis can be posted.

[gd_barnes]

Since others have already started voting, I feel it necessary to post Komodo 10's analysis at this point instead of waiting another half day to get it up to 40 ply:

36 ply

Top 3 moves:
13...Be6 14. Qh5 O-O -0.18
13...Ne7 14. Nxe7 Qxe7 -0.35
13...f4 14. Nc2 O-O -0.38

With 13...Be6 the score continued to improve slightly as the program looked more deeply. Note that negative scores mean we are worse. With Be6 we are closing in on equalizing. The others are effectively white's opening advantage.

All of the involved lines are too complex to post. Here are a couple of mainlines for Ne7 that do not look great for us:

13...Ne7 14. Nxe7 Qxe7 15. O-O O-O 16. Nc2.
White has scored 9 wins 3 losses 9 ties here.

13...Ne7 14. Nxe7 Qxe7 15. O-O Bb7 16. exf5 Qg5 17. g3 h5 18. h4 Qe7 19. Re1
Komoto has white +1.1 here as we cannot get compensation for our pawn. I feel like we have to come up with a different 17th move here like O-O but any such move allows white to consolidate and we mostly lose our attack.

For this reason I like 13...Be6 and I feel that 13...Ne7 is not the best choice. Therefore Be6 is how I voted. The opening DB also strongly favors Be6. Ne7 has been played very little.

[gd_barnes]

Everyone is just voting Ne7 without posting an analysis. Someone please post a line and convince me because I am not seeing it.

[WMHalsdorf]

13...Ne7 14. Nxe7 Qxe7 15. O-O O-O 16. Nc2 Qb7

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by WMHalsdorf

13...Ne7 14. Nxe7 Qxe7 15. O-O O-O 16. Nc2 Qb7

In the opening database that I am looking at, black has never played 16...Qb7 in this position. There are 21 games played after white's 16th move. The moves and game scores for black's 16th move are:

move / white W-L-D
Bb7 6-1-3
Rb8 2-1-4
d5 0-1-2*
f4 1-0

*d5 was the only move with a winning game score for black but it's not enough games. Therefore I plugged the position after white's 16th move into Komodo and let it think for 5-10 mins. It did keep switching back and forth between d5 and f4 but ended up with a slight preference towards d5. It had a white advantage ranging from 0.3 to 0.4. We have an OK center and open position but in most lines we must sack a pawn and white is able to consolidate his pieces at least as quickly as us and we have to fight to get our pawn back. I think the best that we could hope for here is a draw.

I also has Komodo look at your suggestion of 16...Qb7 here. Its recommended line was:
17. exf5 e4 18. Be2 Bxf5 19. Qxd6 with a white advantage of 0.7 to 0.8. Another possibility is 17. exf5 e4 18. Be2 d5 19. Ne3 with a white advantage of 0.8 to 0.9. So I think we can rule out a black 16th move of Qb7 here.