An interesting response to the Sicilian/Scandi that does unusually well

Intro

I continue my exploration into various lines that I stumble upon during my solitary delve into the Openings Explorer.

This time, it's a variation of the Wing Gambit against the Sicilian, but usable as a response to the Scandinavian as well. A very rare line, one that Stockfish is foaming at the mouth against, but that seems to decisively win for White in human vs. human games. Is it a statistical fluke or a line with hidden learning opportunities? I am afraid I can't conclusively say. It's way above my "pay grade".

There are lines that are really beautiful in their complexity, but at no moment is there a critical trap for the opponent. Instead, it seems to lead to positions riddled with opportunities to make little mistakes and requiring moves that are unintuitive for humans. But only sometimes. Some lines are clearly winning for Black, and yet they still lose in a lot of them.

So let's get into it!

The starting position

The starting position is reached by advancing a pawn to e5 instead of taking or defending. In the Scandinavian it is frowned upon because it leads to a better French Defense position for Black, with the light square bishop outside the pawn chain. In the Sicilian, the move is barely talked about, theory ignoring a move that gives Black the upper hand. In both openings, Nc6 is the move that invalidates the e5 move, usually preceded by Bf5, with Black's LSB escaping the pawn chain.

You can get to this position in various ways, but I will just present one for the Sicilian and one for the Scandi: https://lichess.org/analysis/pgn/1.e4+c5+(1...d5+2.e5+c5+3.b4+cxb4+4.f4)+2.b4+cxb4+3.f4+d5+4.e5%20#0

The problem with this position is that the eval is -1.3, with Bf5 being the best reply and Nc6 not that far behind as a second option. Yet it has been reached 3000 times, which shows how rarely it is played, even when Black plays the most common AND best moves, and the win percentage for White is 57% to Black's 40%. It's a huge difference, especially when manifesting itself as early as move four! 17.5% win ratio, almost no draws, sharpness calculated to 54. This is interesting!

In all top three replying moves the odds are overwhelmingly favoring White, even while the engine evaluation is so low. Rarely have I seen a position where all three first options in the database are marked with the green warning sign that win stats are suspiciously above the eval.

Who plays it

If you look at top games, there is just one name popping up: @Nuhijashari64 who seems to play it exclusively against the Sicilian and winning with it more than 50% of the time. This player is rated 2400+ on Lichess. Even higher rated, to 2500+, you can find @Majorian_I also playing this opening. And recently, @aaandrei80 rated almost 2000 Rapid and 1800 Blitz, is playing this line.

Here is an example game:

with a nice queen trap in the beginning, but I wouldn't say this is a trappy opening.

If you guys are reading this, maybe enlighten us about this opening choice!

I couldn't find any rated OTB games online and no entries are there with this positions in the Lichess Masters database. No results were shown for the position on the chesscom Masters search, either, and the player one is paywalled.

Ideas

Now, take this with a grain of salt. I've done some dives in various lines and in fact I wanted to blog about a particular one that was ridiculously convoluted and requiring inhuman moves on both sides, but it was just one branch out of many. The majority of cases you get a triangle shaped wedge into Black's territory, exchange the light square bishops, maybe even the dark square ones, and do all kind of knightly things.

The pawn structure indicates an attack on the king side but White's king is also on the king side. Having no pawns on the queen side, the rook there is free to lift to the other side of the table. Many a time the center remains locked so the game is a race on who attacks first which side. Not clear what Black is even supposed to attack on the queen's side, though, with pawns gone and rook either gunning everything down from afar or jumping to the king side to aid in the attack.

White wants a timely f5 pawn break, while Black is forced to Nh6 and then Nf5 to stop that idea. In a wild computer line, Bxh6 is played and even with the uncastled rook having a semi open file to White's king, the situations are complex enough that either side can easily slip. Not traps per se, just positions that require multiple levels of calculation.

Why is White winning?

It might be a statistical bias. If people are hunting for rare lines to make their own and perfect, it might be that the rarer the line, the stronger the effort one makes to master it, and chess intuition is no match for prep. Or maybe there are some ideas that humans consistently miss in this type of positions and then Stockfish's evaluation is meaningless. It would be exciting it that were the case.

Conclusion

I am always fascinated by the positions that defy human intuition. Even high rated players look at the board and just don't get it. Worse, they can't get it. Stockfish is complaining in all kinds of ways, but the ideas are just too far, too deep or too branching to be contained by a human mind.

This post was not suggesting you play this line, but was describing an opening that intrigues me, even if I can't comprehend it. I would welcome some feedback from high rated players taking a look.

I wouldn't play it, since I don't understand it, but if I can learn to use that initial e5 push and wipe the arrogant dismissal from the faces of people who haven't even considered the move seriously, that's a win in my book.

Let me know how you feel about this. Do you like this kind of explorations? Should I do more or should I just learn chess and write better the few I do? :) Troll away!