076. Testing the Theory 2

White: Capalaskine - all-play-all tournament, ChessWorld.net, 2018

This time it's not me doing the testing but (surprisingly) two 3600-rated engines – KomodoDragon and Stockfish – in the ongoing TCEC 22 Superfinal. The theory in question is (again) the 4 d3 Jaenisch, this time with 4...Nf6 5 exf5 Ne7 (see page 287 in my book).

Both engines (a little disappointingly) went for the same line as White: 6 0-0 c6 7 Ba4 (Stockfish actually played 6 Ba4 first) 7...d6 8 Nc3 Bxf5 9 d4 (usually considered to be good) and then 9...e4 10 Nh4 d5 11 f3 Qd7 12 fxe4 dxe4.

Hitherto my own praxis and analysis were my only source here, so I was very interested to see how the engines got on.

Both games (inadvertently) followed one of mine (see below) to move 16. The engines’ joint novelty (17 Nd1) didn't prove a significant improvement as they went on to make two draws. Whereas I (seemingly) turned a draw down at move 33. That's (likely) because I wanted to play it out, rather than thinking I was at all better. In the final position Black is about to regain a missing pawn, hence a draw all the same.

Well, it's nice to see 4...Nf6 holding up, at least for the moment. But, to quote myself: “It’s an exercise in brinkmanship for sure and I don’t always feel up to it. No worries – on such occasions I just play 4...fxe4!.”