Mariánské Lázně Lesson 2: 'Simple Chess' Can Be Misleading

IN the following position from round two I have just played 12.Rad1.

I was quite pleased with the way the opening had gone, as White has more space in the centre and is well ahead on development, but I had a rude surprise awaiting me

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True, I won the game, but that had more to do with the rating difference (Black was 276 elo lower) than the position in the diagram.

Indeed, given enough time, Stockfish16 and Komodo14.1 conclude the position is completely equal.

Yet there is no denying White has more space and is well ahead on development (the white queen and rooks have found useful files, whereas the black rooks are directly behind friendly pawns and the black queen is being shadowed by a white rook).

Roger de Coverly (1893 Fide) came up with a plausible explanation for the engines' evaluation: "The engines may consider it equal because White has no obvious plan to make progress. These Caro like positions can be very resilient."

Certainly White cannot easily engineer a pawn-break to get into Black's position, and the game was effectively decided by a simple tactical error.

LESSON: there is much more to assessing a chess position than mechanically counting the number of developed pieces or measuring the two sides' control of space - more important is what can be done with these factors.