Erica's Diary 6: The Dilemma of The Suicide Defence

1. Acknowledgment

Firstly, thanks a lot to @Sinamon73, @ravif, @ancientdolphin for helping me about my last blog. Also thanks a lot to @Iubar, @TheUnknownGuyReborn, @vlad_00, @cFlour (?) for explaining tournament information, and help along the way. Special thanks to my best friend on this site @TheUnknownGalReborn (a.k.a. @Ingrid-vengeance ?) who helped me about atomic chess, antichess, blog formatting and encouraged me.

2. Horde World Championship

After a slow start, @mindhunter0101 ended up winning the horde world championship, defeating @Sinamon73 11-5. The study for the final match is here:

You can also find the stream by racing kings legend @RoyalManiac in this post: https://lichess.org/forum/team-horde-world-championship/hwc-2022-coclusion#4

@mindhunter0101 was dominant in the whole tournament, and won the championship convincingly. Hopefully we can have more participants this year and create more interesting matches!

3. My Antichess World Championship

Skip this part if you don't want to see stuff about myself.

It was the best championship for me so far, I did not finish last. I am really not "masochistic", I just like registering for these championships, because why not? Joining variant world championships can be good experiences. I shall come back next year, hopefully. (Yes, playing chess variants is just a hobby, but I enjoy it.)

I avoided "0-6" loss in all my matches. Which sadly does not matter. Special thanks to all my opponents who are all very friendly. My record was:

Round 1: 1.5-5.5 @nogirosta

Round 2: 2-6 (3-7) @Beethoven2

Round 3: 1.5-5.5 @PLSDONTCLOSEMYACC

Round 4: 6-4 @Sassychessgirl248

Round 5: 1-6 (1-7) @apsid

Round 6: 6-2 @Neptune2

Round 7: 3-6 @MiladLouak0

Round 8: 5.5-0.5 @BlindJagulep

I feel that I got lucky in several matches to avoid 0-6. But in the end, I still feel that this was a good tournament. I shall keep an eye on the next stage which is "candidates", where top players will battle for the championship.

4. "Suicide Defence" and having more pieces in antichess

1.e3 is the most common antichess opening, and is probably the best. The most common response is 1...b5. According to people in the antichess community, the opening: 1.e3 b5 2.Bxb5 Bb7 is called the Suicide Defence in antichess. The name originates from the alternative name for antichess which is "Suicide Chess". This indicates that this opening is traditionally the most common antichess opening, but nowadays, with the help of the analysis engine, this opening becomes a weak opening. As can be seen from the lichess database, the move 2...e6 becomes the most common opening (and is recommended by engine), and the Bb7 move is less common and gives white a higher winning percentage. 2...Nh6 which was played less often gives black a much higher winning percentage. Engine marks Bb7 as a blunder. This indicates 2...Bb7 is no longer the most common choice, and very bad both theoretically and practically.

That being said, I had a hard time when facing this opening, and I played surprisingly well with this opening. I summarized my openings as black in the antichess world championship (I try different openings a lot). Surprisingly I did better as black than white in the earlier rounds (before round 5), and it's somewhat because of the move Bb7:

Round 1: e3 e6 Ba6 Nxa6 Qf3 Qg5 (Loss), e3 b5 Bxb5 Bb7 Bxd7 Bxg2 (Win), e3 e6 Ba6 Nxa6 b4 Bxb4 Qh5 (Draw).

Round 2: e3 e6 Ba6 Nxa6 b4 Bxb4 Qg4 (Loss twice), e3 b5 Bxb5 e6 Bxd7 Bxd7 (Loss once, Draw once), e3 b5 Bxb5 Bb7 Bxd7 Bxg2 (Win)

Round 3: e3 e6 Ba6 Nxa6 b4 Bxb4 Qh5 (Loss once, Draw once), e3 b5 Bxb5 Bb7 Bxd7 Bxg2 (Win), e3 b5 Bxb5 e6 Bxd7 Bxd7 (Loss)

Round 4: b3 b6 Na3 g6 (Loss), b3 b6 Na3 b5 (Win), b3 b6 g3 g6 (Win), g3 g6 b3 b6 (Win), Nh3 g5 Nxg5 e6 (Win, but apparently this opening is a forced mate for white, e6 was a bad mistake)

Round 5: e3 e6 Ba6 Nxa6 b4 Bxb4 Qg4 (Loss), c4 d5 cxd5 Qxd5 (Loss), e3 b5 Bxb5 e6 Bxd7 Bxd7 (Loss). I did not get to try Bb7.

Round 6: e3 e6 Ba6 Nxa6 b4 Bxb4 Qf3 (Loss. I did not study this loss, which caused big trouble in Round 7. This line is very tricky, one bad move and black loses), e3 b5 Bxb5 e6 Bxd7 Bxd7 (Draw), b3 b6 g3 g6 (Draw), e3 b5 Bxb5 Bb7 Bxd7 Bxg2 (Win).

Round 7: e3 e6 Ba6 Nxa6 b4 Bxb4 Qf3 (Loss twice to the same line. Apparently after Qxb7, the only good move for black is the instinctively bad Bxe1. And black needs to play accurately for the next few moves as well), e3 b5 Bxb5 e6 Bxd7 Bxd7 (Loss twice), e3 b5 Bxb5 Bb7 Bxd7 Bxg2 (Win).

Round 8: e3 e6 Ba6 Nxa6 b4 Bxb4 Qh5 (Win), e3 b5 Bxb5 Bb7 Bxd7 Bxg2 (Win), e3 b5 Bxb5 e6 Bxd7 Bxd7 (Win).

Which means I casually went 6-0 with this opening. 4 of my opponents were rated above 1900. Once, twice can be coincidence, but 6 times against 6 different opponents? This makes me think about whether this opening is actually good. This is a dilemma.

The idea of this opening is to force a big trade. For example,

this position is often resulted from this defence. Instinctively, black is better because black has given away more pieces after the trade, and the white bishop can become a big problem. But the engine disagrees and thinks white is much better. Practical play agrees with engine, white has a very good winning percentage, especially after c4.

I feel that sometimes it is not good to give away pieces whenever possible, especially when left with several pawns. These pawns can become uncontrollable after forced promotions. Which might be why Suicide Defence is no longer the most common defence despite its name. One of my friends think this defence is bad for black, but just annoying to play against as white, which might be true. Another friend mentioned that one of the top players @Fritzi_2003 (who sadly did not join the championship) likes to play this opening and has a good record with it. And this opening is good only if black knows how to correctly use it.

In my current self-contradicting opinion, on the one hand, this defence is proven to be bad both theoretically and practically; on the other hand, some players had success with it, coincidentally one of them is Erica. One of my friends even said that the newest engine proves that Bb7 is the best move as black (black is losing in antichess and Bb7 survives for the most moves). I hope to find out the truth about this opening in the future.

5. The future

In the future this blog will talk about all variants that I play, or other random things. Good luck with your life, to everyone reading this!