Gligoric-Smyslov, 1959

[zullil]

Ke7

[d]2q5/1r2k3/6p1/pr1bPpPp/2pP1P2/2P3K1/2BRQ3/R7 w - - 0 20

Ra2 with score of 0
[D]2q5/1r2k3/6p1/pr1bPpPp/2pP1P2/2P3K1/R1BRQ3/8 b - - 1 24

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Ke7

[d]2q5/1r2k3/6p1/pr1bPpPp/2pP1P2/2P3K1/2BRQ3/R7 w - - 0 20

Ra2 with score of 0
[D]2q5/1r2k3/6p1/pr1bPpPp/2pP1P2/2P3K1/R1BRQ3/8 b - - 1 24

Qd8

[d]3q4/1r2k3/6p1/pr1bPpPp/2pP1P2/2P3K1/R1BRQ3/8 w - - 0 21

[zullil]

Qd8

[d]3q4/1r2k3/6p1/pr1bPpPp/2pP1P2/2P3K1/R1BRQ3/8 w - - 0 21

Must stop now. Will resume tomorrow if possible.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Qd8

[d]3q4/1r2k3/6p1/pr1bPpPp/2pP1P2/2P3K1/R1BRQ3/8 w - - 0 21

Must stop now. Will resume tomorrow if possible.

OK, but this is already a technically winning position.

I would have indicated the plan, but better not now.

Hope to continue a bit tomorrow.

[peter]

OK, but this is already a technically winning position.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

Now, a very short shoot-off to this thread.

What people fail to understand here is that there are 3 types of chess:

- tactical open chess; this is usually shallow; humans are sometimes bad at it, engines are very good, but tactical chess as a whole is still shallow

- positional chess; this is deeper than tactical chess, you should be familiar with many positional concepts to get it right; humans are good here, but stronger engines also nowadays manage to find at least half of the good positional moves, due to the availability of certain positional eval features, as well as improved/deeper search

- manoeuvering; usually this happens in positions of more closed type, where you should manoeuver your pieces for a long time, maybe some 15-20-30 moves and even longer, before improving your situation and gaining decisive advantage; this is the highest level of chess, requiring biggest depths; it certainly might appear to someone boring, but this is the highest level of chess. Boring things are things you do not understand, for me manoeuvering is not boring at all, it is actually very interesting.

Now, as said, modern top engines are excellent at shallow tactics, find some good positional moves from time to time, and almost never find any good manoeuvering move.

That is why I am not surprised at all SF and other engines see nothing in the above position. When they get close enough to a tactical solution or a position they understand, they find the right moves very quickly, but not when there are some 20-30-40 manoeuvering moves to make before you might come to a position that is tactically solvable.

That is why I do not pay attention to what people say about this game.
Concerning the game, I know that:

- there is nothing more useful than analysis, as when analysing, you learn 10 times more than when simply browsing games or following some commentary; you simply study many more positions in-depth when analysing, and that is certain to pay off; that is why I like analysing longer TC games

- boring as might seem, manoeuvering chess is the highest level of positional chess and the deepest of all; if you do not believe me, check what some GMs have to said about it: you start with open positions, learning some tactics, and the last thing you learn is to play some good positional moves, that certainly look boring to many onlookers, but not to those who understand the logic behind those moves.

Again, every good GM will tell you this, you might want to check on the internet: the first thing you learn to play in chess are open positions, some tactics, and the last thing you learn are good positional moves.

Tactical moves are shallow, good positional moves are deeper, and sound manoeuvering moves are the deepest of all.
That is why engines understand pretty well tactical open chess and some portion of positional chess, but totally fail to see a long series of say, some 20-30-40 manoeuvering moves. It is simply too deep for them.

So that, again, thanks for all the derision, but what looks boring to someone might actually be very very instructive.

Concerning the position from the Gligoric-Smyslov game, I can say one thing: this is a very interesting position, not an extremely interesting one, but a very interesting position indeed. You stumble upon such positions only once in a while, maybe every 500 games or so, so I do not in any way regard analysing such a position as a waste of time, on the contrary.

Take for example all the games from the last 10 top GM tournaments, containing maybe some 500 games in all, and you will not find a single position like the one I posted above. But of course, one should be able to appreciate it.

[Lyudmil Tsvetkov]

The other thing is, when are engines going to learn manoeuvering, when they do not pay any attention to it?

Top engines barely have any worthwhile eval, so when are they going to add the necessary search techniques to be able to manoeuver well?

As, in positions of manoeuvering type, you might want for example to order retreating moves higher than moves improving your psqt.

[Laskos]

Here a nice position to try your engines:

you are joking correct?

Or is there actually a win?

what??

Five minutes with Fritz GUI and SF two weeks ago were much more useful than two weeks of "Lyudmil's winning position"

[peter]

Your manoeuvring didn't work so well in this position, did it?

You are in the third trial with 40 moves after your "winning position" again.
How many more moves do you have to shuffle round so that you then can call it a succesful manoeuvre?

I mean, if you are not able to win this, shouldn't you then at least show any kind of progress in your manoeuvring?
Or could it be that otherwise it was just bad manoeuvring?

Manoeuvring in a dead drawn position is simply wasted time like riding a dead horse, which of course also can be done in different elegant ways.

You can ride the dead horse with wonderful manoeuvres or you can ride it just stubbornly and without any regard about it, but it doesn't mean a thing as for the horse.

[Graham Banks]

With all due respect, if this is you - http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=2905850 - there are many members here with much higher ratings.

Although I really do admire your trying to point out weaknesses in engines to try and encourage authors to improve them, I don't think that you should be confidently coming across as a complete authority on whether certain positions are definitely won, drawn or lost.

Hope you don't take this the wrong way.

Graham.