Why don't more GM's play The Grob/Borg?

@Vetinari_Computer I would argue 1. f3 is worse than the Grob.

There are numerous easy-to-learn refutations for Black. Even if Black falls for White’s trap it is bad, score is close to 0% in the database in this line.



Nice trap, where you end up losing.

PS: strong players prefer sustainable openings and not dirt-cheap and dumb patzer moves.

Didn't Magnus play one of the titled tournaments where he played the Grob every opening? Pretty sure I remember that maybe 6 months ago or so.

@LaserGuy he was toying with them GMs

I disagree that this opening is marginally better than passing....if you just pass, you can play a normal game as black. After g4 white already is worse... there's no point in doing this. This is not an attacking move, it's just a weak move to be exploited by black.

@etaLaskera I disagree. I think it's an attacking move that creates difficult, sharp positions. It puts a lot of pressure on Black.

One way to estimate it is to let stockfish run
lichess.org/analysis
on startign will give white 0.2
after g4 -0.8, so stockfish this it is worse than passing
f6 is onli -0.6 so I not fully confident on these

But we can safely say that g4 is worse than passing and lot worse than a3 for instance.

It is not attackin move. It creates attacking chances only if black chooses to give them.More of white gets attacked

@AdamSandler I see that at least you practice what you preach. But you mistakenly assume your relative success with it in blitz means this is good. No, you just get away with it. In blitz, against weaker players, you can do it. But GM against GM is a totally different story...

@petri999 How to disagree with stockfish :D

I once played in a 9 round open tournament, where IM Michael Basman opened all his games with 1 g4 and with black played 1...h6 and 2...g5 against everybody, including the masters and grandmasters. He won the tournament. So everybody was invited to prepare for it.