Openings From Weimar VI

MY round six game, in which I was Black against Wilfried Adam (1828). developed into a King's Indian Attack or, arguably, the Closed Variation of the Sicilian.

Here I want to look at an interesting point right at the start of the game - the interesting bit being not so much the moves themselves, as the engines' reactions to those moves.

When the initial position on the board, before a move has been made, is first set up on a computer, White has a slight edge, according to Stockfish17.1 and Dragon1.

White is better

The latter engine sticks to this verdict, but Stockfish17.1, if allowed enough time, comes to regard the opening position as equal, albeit giving White the better part of equality.

After the game's 1.e4, the verdicts naturally do not change, but 1...c5 sees Dragon1, but not Stockfish17.1, marginally increase White's edge.

My game continued 2.d3.

Clearly this is not a dynamic move, but it opens a diagonal for White's dark-square bishop and supports e4.

Ture, it also restricts White's light-square bishop, but that is not so important as the king's bishop is headed for g2.

However, the engines, while not calling 2.d3 a mistake, are far from happy with it - indeed, Stockfish17.1 regards Black as now being close to having a slight edge, and certainly reckons Black has the better part of equality.

I find it hard to believe 2.d3 is so bad as to amount to a swing in evaluation of almost half a pawn.

Certainly Dragon1, which, remember, was less keen on 1...c5, is not so critical of 2.d3, but nonetheless awards Black a minute edge.

Assuming the engines are right in their evaluations, and I realise that is quite an assumption when purely positional moves are under consideration, this goes to show how important it is to be active in the opening, and not to just make a vaguely useful move - what Garry Kasparov tends to call a half-move.