Caro Kann counter

@tpr said in #19:

Those statistics mean nothing. The database contains a mix of bullet, blitz, rapid, classical, correspondence. The database contain all kind of players, from beginner to world champion. The database contains lopsided encounters like 2200 vs. 2700. The database contains recent games as well as old games.

For meaningful statistics you would have to filter say both players +2700, classical time control, 2024 or later.

It has been a long time the Caro-Kann was played in top level chess, like World Championship Matches, Candidates' Tournaments.

And besides. The speech was originally about all chess players in general. What do samples on different rating intervals have to do with it? And mixed up in all sorts of ways (and now these against these, and then these against these, and so on for some reason). Absolutely nothing to do with it! But even with such samples, as we see in the comments above, in all intervals - everywhere c6 is either the most successful response for black to e4, or one of the most successful. From first to third place in terms of success, it is in different samples. And in the sample we were originally talking about (for all chess players on Lichess) - the first place in terms of success for black is the response c6 to e4! With a score that is even greater for black than white!

@tpr said in #19:

Those statistics mean nothing. The database contains a mix of bullet, blitz, rapid, classical, correspondence. The database contain all kind of players, from beginner to world champion. The database contains lopsided encounters like 2200 vs. 2700. The database contains recent games as well as old games.

For meaningful statistics you would have to filter say both players +2700, classical time control, 2024 or later.

It has been a long time the Caro-Kann was played in top level chess, like World Championship Matches, Candidates' Tournaments.

And you yourself mistakenly fantasized for some reason (this is especially evident from your idea to filter out 2700+ players for some reason), that we are discussing here whether c6 is objectively the strongest response to e4. Not at all. Why did you fantasize this yourself? No, this is not what is being discussed here, no one has written anything like that here. What we are talking about here is the success of this move in the games actually played by people. And, in general, all players. Do you understand the difference now? That's it. So, according to engine evaluations, in general, in all lines, White in the Caro-Kann opening from the very first moves has an advantage from slightly to not even slightly, but significantly. In some lines, as much as usually in some gambits for the side that played the gambit. And usually this advantage is also relatively stable. But here is the final result: Black even beat White in Caro-Kann in the aggregate of all games on Lichess (and c6 is the most successful response to e4). There are a number of reasons for this. The following are especially noticeable here:

• on average, those playing it with Black are much more experienced in Caro-Kann;
• and initially, on average, the resulting positions are much more suitable for them in style.
  Plus some other reasons.

@Inventor_1
thankyou for correcting my error where i wrote e6 twice instead of c6 in the first list. unfortunately its already too late afte 7 hours, and i cannot correct the error. lichess won't let me edit it.

@Csathvik I know your forum has been derailed, but I chimed in to say that any serious, mainline opening is scoring fantastically well against the Caro-Kann at the amateur level—except the advance variation. (The white side of 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5!? is a headache.) I recommend the Classical Variation, Exchange Variation, or Panov-Botvinnik. Once amateurs do some study in how to beat the Caro in these lines, usually they start having a good time.

Which is also why I do not recommend the Caro-Kann for beginners/amateurs as a defense to 1.e4: it isn't actually the magical ez-pz defense that everyone wants it to be. Black is getting punished the moment he faces booked-up opposition.

I play the exchange variation, and then put my light squared bishop on d3, and then move my pawn to c2 to let queen come out avoid pin and then bishop goes f4, knight goes d2, support any f3 knight.

"What do samples on different rating intervals have to do with it?" * On lower levels and in fast time controls the opening plays no role at all. Top grandmasters have been defeated in slow time controls with 1 e4 a6 and 1 e4 g5. So for lower level players and/or faster time controls anything is playable. The last occurrence of Caro-Kann at top level was if I am not mistaken Anand-Carlsen 2013.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1736633

@forsoothplays said in #24:

@Csathvik I know your forum has been derailed, but I chimed in to say that any serious, mainline opening is scoring fantastically well against the Caro-Kann at the amateur level—except the advance variation. (The white side of 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5!? is a headache.) I recommend the Classical Variation, Exchange Variation, or Panov-Botvinnik. Once amateurs do some study in how to beat the Caro in these lines, usually they start having a good time.

Which is also why I do not recommend the Caro-Kann for beginners/amateurs as a defense to 1.e4: it isn't actually the magical ez-pz defense that everyone wants it to be. Black is getting punished the moment he faces booked-up opposition.

Thank you for this response. My main line against the Caro-Kann is the advance variation and if they were to play something like c5. I simply play Nf3. To my knowledge the Exchange Variation is the weakest option. Your also right about black being punished but mainly about his space advantage.

@tpr said in #26:

"What do samples on different rating intervals have to do with it?" * On lower levels and in fast time controls the opening plays no role at all. Top grandmasters have been defeated in slow time controls with 1 e4 a6 and 1 e4 g5. So for lower level players and/or faster time controls anything is playable. The last occurrence of Caro-Kann at top level was if I am not mistaken Anand-Carlsen 2013.
www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1736633

Again, you are writing something wrong. Statistics for chess professionals have been given above several times (starting from the level of Master of Sports in Chess and above to the very top). According to them, the answer c6 is the third most successful for black. Moreover, from two different sources, such statistics say that c6 is the third most successful. That's it, there is nothing more to discuss. Here, the statistics above for all groups of players speak about the success of the move c6 from 1st to 3rd place. It feels like you are writing just to write something, and without thinking first, and without first looking at the information already available in the topic. And, by the way (there were 100% sufficient arguments above, and what follows is not them, but just an example), I personally have a huge pile of victories in Caro-Kann as black against various masters of sports in chess (national, FIDE, international). I regularly defeat different masters of sports in Caro-Kann. I got the official title of candidate master of sports in chess 25 years ago (but in my country, not international), then easily confirmed it for about 8 years, then threw it in the trash (because it was useless to me), stopping playing in official tournaments. But due to the normal candidate master of sports in chess, I still play. For example, against different masters here on Lichess I have scored about 36% over the entire time (I understand that usually below average among masters, masters play against me here, but still as much as 36%). For example, with my current rating in rapid 2318 here on Lichess, the site tells me that I play stronger than 99.4% of rapid players here. Does this level suit you, for example? To put it mildly, I am far from a beginner (and I play with far from beginners). So there you have it. I usually play with opponents of about my level, plus or minus 300 rating points (up to and including international masters). I have absolutely no problems in Caro-Kann with black. And I play only with those who know the theory. At my level of play, you won't meet people who don't know the theory of openings and play. There are some who know variations poorly - that's true. But there are no people who don't know the theory at all. In the opening of Caro-Kan, in the vast majority of cases, I get a slightly worse position. Which suits me completely. It's Caro-Kan, that's how it should be. But the result of the games afterwards is much better for me than those who don't know could expect, looking at the engine's evaluations of positions based on the results of the openings of the games. As it should be in Caro-Kann. I am usually much more experienced in the resulting positions, and they usually suit me more in style (than my opponents, on average). And you again absurdly wrote the answer to me incorrectly: not to me, but into the void. It feels like you are writing this on purpose. So that I wouldn't notice and silently agree with your wrong answer. That won't happen. And if that's the case (that you're writing that way on purpose) - then it's mean, stupid, and pointless.

@tpr said in #26:

"What do samples on different rating intervals have to do with it?" * On lower levels and in fast time controls the opening plays no role at all. Top grandmasters have been defeated in slow time controls with 1 e4 a6 and 1 e4 g5. So for lower level players and/or faster time controls anything is playable. The last occurrence of Caro-Kann at top level was if I am not mistaken Anand-Carlsen 2013.
www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1736633

And you absurdly continued to write something about the highest level of chess players. What does that have to do with it? It has nothing to do with it! Absolutely not! That's not what's being discussed at all. Even if Caro-Kann were never played there, it would have absolutely no effect on what's being discussed.
We are not discussing at all how good or bad the positions for black are objectively (according to engine estimates) after the opening in different variations of Caro-Kann. But we are discussing the practical result. And it is that ho c6:

• the most successful (first place) for black in prime games of all chess players on Lichess (and black even beat white in the final score);
• 3rd place in success for black in games of chess professionals;
• statistics against the success of the move c6 are not visible anywhere.
  That's it, there's nothing more to discuss here.
  And an example. While you have studied a lot of theory of different openings, some people have spent many times less time and effort on studying openings and keeping them in memory for many years. And their results are better. Knowing the Caro-Kann for black and keeping this knowledge in memory requires many times less time and effort than, for example, if e5 responds to e4.

@tpr said in #26:

"What do samples on different rating intervals have to do with it?" * On lower levels and in fast time controls the opening plays no role at all. Top grandmasters have been defeated in slow time controls with 1 e4 a6 and 1 e4 g5. So for lower level players and/or faster time controls anything is playable. The last occurrence of Caro-Kann at top level was if I am not mistaken Anand-Carlsen 2013.
www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1736633

And another example (the above were 100% sufficient arguments, and what follows is not them, but just an example). A little over a year ago I registered on Lichess for the first time and started playing here. And before that I had not played a single game of chess with people for about 11.5 years (I had completely different interests at that time)! And only sometimes (not at least one game every year) I played with a computer (not at all like playing against people, you need to play against a computer, that's why I only played anti-computer options). And I have not played in official tournaments for about 19 years now. Before coming to Lichess, I had not played with people from my level of play during this entire period (but only with much weaker people and a computer). So. I am now playing at about the same level at which I played in childhood and youth, when I had the official title of candidate for master of sports in chess (in my country, not international). And I played at a level close to this one when I returned to games after that huge break in games for many, many years, coming to Lichess. Yes, I forgot a lot, I had to remember a lot. But there was no colossal drop in the level of play over many, many years of not playing with people. Because I play Caro-Kann and the like, which does not require constantly keeping in mind a huge pile of theoretical variations. How many ranks would the quality of play drop for fans of precise theoretical variations, playing a bunch of possible openings after, for example, e5 response to e4? That's it! They would have forgotten more than 80% of the theory over such a period without games and would have become completely helpless! Their level would have dropped by several ranks over these many years of not playing with people! Their drop in level would have been many times greater than mine! Caro-Kann and the like are especially good not for their objective strength, but for their usefulness in practice. If a person is going to become a professional chess player, to try to enter the TOP-20 of the world chess rating someday, then he needs to study a lot and choose objectively the strongest openings. But what do we have to do with it? Nothing! Caro-Kann and the like allow you to spend much less effort to achieve a good level of chess results. And then maintaining the level for many years - also requires much less effort.