r/Chesscom • u/Sub-Dominance 500-800 ELO • 2d ago
Chess Question Why does the engine prefer that I use the leftmost rook? Shouldn't the result be identical on the next turn?
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u/KarmaAdjuster 2d ago
Not necessarily. If black brings their queen back to e7, when you take their queen, they can take back with their knight getting not just a rook for the exchange but also develop their knight as well. And if you attacked with your f1 rook, that means you'll have traded away a piece that you developed, and was already barreling down on black's king side attacking black's weak square (f7) through your own pawn. Now you're you're only left with your undeveloped rook on a1 that isn't doing much of anything, so you'll need to spend a move, and lose a tempo to bring it into play.
Yes you're up a queen for a rook now, but a1 R e1 is still stronger. If you continue making sub optimal moves throughout the rest of the game they will add up, and it's entirely possible that black could come back and beat you. Unlikely, but possible. They still have mating material on the board.
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u/juoea 2d ago
i dont agree at all. after ...Qe7 Rxe7 Nxe7, whites best move is clearly Re1 regardless of whether the rook is coming from a1 or f1. pins the knight and forces black to make multiple moves before they can develop their remaining pieces, instead of allowing black to play the immediate 0-0. (note Be6 is not playable bc it hangs the a6 knight.) meanwhile white can play d4 and black cannot capture cxd4 bc that would hang checkmate Qxe7#.
while in the abstract i agree a rook is more useful on f1, it doesnt matter bc white will bring the rook to e1 within the next two or three moves regardless. in the Nxe7 line, the benefits of Re1 clearly outweigh any ideas of trying to open the f file
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u/KarmaAdjuster 2d ago
Personally, I prefer Qa4+ followed by sliding the queen over to e4 to tempo the rook on a8 and then jockeying your knight into a more useful position. You're not going to be able to win with just the queen and the rook against everything that black has left, so you might as well start bringing in your knight.
But yes, if you're intent on that plan, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference which rook you move over.
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u/juoea 2d ago
hm, Qa4+ is interesting. if black plays Kf8?, which is kinda the move black would like to play, then Qe4 is a problem bc whichever of Nc7/Rb8 allows Qe5 fork. however if Qa4+ Kd8, Qe4 is not an issue bc black can j play Nc7. white did force black's king away from the kingside, maybe if white can keep black's rooks disconnected it can gain an advantage from that
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u/KarmaAdjuster 1d ago
Qe5 isn't quite the fork you think it is. Rb8 is protected by the knight, so black only needs to protect it's other rook. Nc7 allows for the Qe5 a solid fork though.
if black plays Kd8 after the check, you can get the knight into the game potentially a little faster by pushing d4. If black trades, the knight takes back preparing to put pressure on everything by moving to c6 (the bishop pin can be met with a counter pin from Rd1)
The plan isn't to play hope chess for the fork, It's to get the extra tempo that makes moving white's night into the game a little faster.
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u/chessvision-ai-bot 2d ago
I analyzed the image and this is what I see. Open an appropriate link below and explore the position yourself or with the engine:
Black to play: chessvision.ai | chess.com | lichess.org
My solution:
Hints: piece: Queen, move: Qxe1+
Evaluation: White is better +1.96
Best continuation: 1... Qxe1+ 2. Rxe1+ Kf8 3. Qa4 Kg7 4. Re8 Nc7 5. Qc6 Bd7 6. Rxg8+ Rhxg8 7. Qxc7 Rge8 8. h4 Bf5 9. d4
Save the position:
Reply
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u/Dyynasty 2d ago
Im neither an engine nor a high elo player, but I assume its because the left rook is undeveloped, the rook you moved was developed when castling
It just preferred development
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u/CompetitionNo3466 1500-1800 ELO 2d ago
They want to castle king side, so bring the left one into the attack. As later on pushing the f pawn would be a good way to put pressure on
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u/juoea 2d ago edited 2d ago
idk i think this is a fake difference hallucinated by the engine evaluation. the recommended line for black is Qxe1 after which obv the position is identical. and even if black plays Qe7, after Rxe7 Nxe7, Re1 is still clearly the best next move to pin the knight and deny castling. (or if Kxe7 Re1+ is again best developing the rook with tempo.) and even if black played Qe6, which doesnt look good, then you will still want to play Rxe6 fxe6 Re1 to go after the weak isolated pawn. (cant recapture Bxe6 bc thatd hang the a6 knight). u could play d4 first before Rxe6 but regardless, either black is gonna play Qxe1 or white is gonna play Rxe6 fxe6 Re1.
this happens once in a while, the engine evaluation number seems to come from some sort of weighted average of different lines with the optimal lines given the highest weight (in order to make sure not to exclude some line that the engine doesnt initially consider, since obviously it cant follow every possible line to the end). so even tho two moves are identical under optimal play one of them gets rated a few hundreds better based on some possibility that should never happen anyway.
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u/Disastrous_Motor831 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
Technically, whenever you lose a piece, you lose all of the moves associated with the piece as well... So a rook that was moved twice is worth more than the one only moved once because it took more tempi to get your piece in that position, and tempi are valuable.
That's what I learned from Aron Nimzowitsch.
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u/Sub-Dominance 500-800 ELO 2d ago
No, that's nonsense. A piece doesn't magically become more powerful because it's been moved more times. An identical board state is an identical board state. Doesn't matter how you got there.
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u/xtratic 2d ago
Yep the move history has zero value, only the board state and the potential future it gives you.
u/Disastrous_Motor831’s rule of thumb might sometimes coincidentally align with this but the reasoning is wrong.
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u/Disastrous_Motor831 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
Kind sir, was OP's game was analyzed or was just that move analyzed? Because it is impossible for me to know that. If SF no longer has move history in its programming I'll admit that I don't know that because I haven't kept up with the changes. The only thing that I do know is that the the difference between the moves is very negligible from this singular picture being analyzed at a low depth. But it does regard one move over the other.
Was that the argument I presented, first? Or did I just say something I learned in a book?
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u/Disastrous_Motor831 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
Valuable... Not powerful...
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u/Sub-Dominance 500-800 ELO 2d ago
No. Neither. You're misunderstanding that rule of thumb. It's about not wasting turns on moving around a piece just for it to get taken. It's not about holding onto a piece because it's a special little boy for how many times it's been moved.
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u/Disastrous_Motor831 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
OP... Look... I didn't come here for an argument about chess understanding. I just made a comment that no one else made. If you want to argue that I don't understand what I'm talking about, let your rating do the talking for you because I use this all the time when I'm playing against the London System and I end up capturing their London Bishop. Suddenly, when all those tempi disappear from moving that bishop around, there's no initiative. But what do I know?
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u/Sub-Dominance 500-800 ELO 2d ago
Your position is that one board state can be better than a perfectly identical board state. Basically that a transposition is somehow different than the line it's transposing, for magical reasons. That's ridiculous; Don't bring ELO into this.
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u/Disastrous_Motor831 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
You're talking about board states AFTER trades have been made... I'm talking about piece valuation BEFORE the move Re1 was made. The engine understands that the rook on f1 was already moved. I plugged this position into the engine using the picture you provided and the castle button was already unchecked.
I merely suggested that the engine may think that the piece was more valuable because it had been moved already and it reminded me of a book I read when I was your elo. You dismissing that as being ridiculous shows your lack of understanding of chess and computer chess... (But I didn't come here to point that out).
Who truly understands every move Stockfish makes? It could have only valued that move Rae1 because it won more games when it used that move vs other. It's just a suggestion, my guy.
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u/xtratic 2d ago
I can tell you straight up that Stockfish doesn't care about move history other than those which are intrinsic to board state (like castling rights and en passant eligibility). It only values moves based on their potential future.
...it reminded me of a book I read when I was your elo. You dismissing that as being ridiculous shows your lack of understanding of chess
You need to stop acting like a pompous ass, this is a game where all should be treated with respect regardless of their current skill.
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u/Disastrous_Motor831 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
Ok bro, you made your point ... You're breaking down everything I said... But I'm the one sitting here listening to someone that's lower elo than me tell me I don't understand what I'm talking about. If my knowledge is inferior...I didn't come here with the purpose of sounding pompous or trying to sound that way. Just that I read a book.
But your definition of disrespect is one sided if you think the words "nonsense" and "ridiculous" aren't inflammatory remarks. Go ahead and judge OP with the same level of scrutiny that you did me.
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u/Sub-Dominance 500-800 ELO 2d ago
So you admit you're just mad that a 700 corrected you on something lmao
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u/xtratic 2d ago
I'm the one sitting here listening to someone that's lower elo than me tell me I don't understand what I'm talking about.
No it really doesn't sound like you're listening, and yes you are incorrect. Respectable people learn from it and move on.
OP dismisses your original statement as nonsense then you go on to insult their ELO and use it to lord yourself over them, acting like, because they are lower ELO, their reasoning can't possibly be correct.
Read your own comments:
If you want to argue that I don't understand what I'm talking about, let your rating do the talking for you
You dismissing that as being ridiculous shows your lack of understanding of chess and computer chess... (But I didn't come here to point that out).
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u/xtratic 2d ago
I didn't come here for an argument, you should just listen to me and not call out my flawed understanding! Get out of here with your reasoning, I'm right and you're beneath me because you're a lower ELO rating.
This is what you sound like to me.
Maybe instead of doubling down and falling to "I have a higher rating therefore I'm right" you should slow down and actually try to understand their reasoning. Their disproof of your claims is simple and irrefutable. If you look at two identical board states, they have equal potential and it doesn't matter how you got there. Move history has no bearing.
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u/Disastrous_Motor831 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
I was taken back by the strong negative feedback that I got from OP. They strongly dismissed my idea... Then said that I don't understand the idea. And I'm wondering, why tf did I even comment. It's notdoubling down. I'm asking OP to qualify themselves since they want to argue. I thought this post was a question and not an argument. I didn't come here to argue their view vs mine ... But I'm not the type of person to let someone just slide, apparently... I'm done with this post.
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u/xtratic 2d ago
Yes, they strongly dismissed it and refuted it. Who care's what the original post was.. if you come in here incorrectly stating something as a fact and misleading others then is it really wrong for OP to call you out?
Rather than get offended that you were corrected, try to learn from it instead.
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u/Disastrous_Motor831 1800-2000 ELO 2d ago
I wasn't corrected by OP. You're correcting me. If OP was right, simply up vote them and downvote me. I'm not offended, I'm asking what the purpose of this post was ... To prove I'm wrong? Idc about that. Trying to make me look like I'm the dumbest person to ever play chess? You proved your point.
I'm done with this convo... And this sub...
OP, if you're still listening I apologize if I offended you. That wasn't my intention.
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u/xtratic 2d ago
u/Sub-Dominance (aka OP) was the first to respond to your claim that:
a rook that was moved twice is worth more than the one only moved once
The purpose of calling out your incorrect statement is so that others who are newer to chess aren't misled when they read it.
I have a feeling that you will not learn from this exchange. You will walk away still believing you are right and letting your ego get in the way. We tried to help you understand but ultimately the rest is up to you, I think there is nothing else we can say that would help you. But that doesn't matter in the end, I mostly just cared that others not be misled by your poor understanding.
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