@MillenniumBug said in #30:
> What I was trying to say was this:
> Your theory appears to be that preparation of Ra3 will give you an edge. And you wish to prove your theorem by showing better results, against an engine, with 2. Ra3 than with regular play. Perhaps I misread you?
>
> Forget my "find level" ... I do not think you will perform better with this opening at any level against any engine.
>
> The "edge" against humans, comes from
> 1. Psychology as already mentioned, opponents may over-push to punish
> 2. Clock, as perhaps mentioned? Since many moves can be played automatically, you gain a clock advantage. This is mentioned (on the fly) by GothamChess in one of his YT videos on the Naroditsky - Ra3 games
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the human play the move 2. Ra3. I'm suggesting that you make the engine play this opening because it likely takes you away from openings/patterns you have experience with. You then, may play more poorly (either by over-pushing or simple unfamiliarity with the position) against this than against other openings you could make the engine play (this was one of your suggestions and I quite liked it).
The other thing is that my idea could be wrong, and that's fine. It's an empirical question that I don't know the answer to yet. The fun part is trying it out to see. I agree that there may be psychological factors (including time pressure, nervousness about an unfamiliar line) that could turn out to be most important, but we won't know if that's the case until we test those ideas.
> What I was trying to say was this:
> Your theory appears to be that preparation of Ra3 will give you an edge. And you wish to prove your theorem by showing better results, against an engine, with 2. Ra3 than with regular play. Perhaps I misread you?
>
> Forget my "find level" ... I do not think you will perform better with this opening at any level against any engine.
>
> The "edge" against humans, comes from
> 1. Psychology as already mentioned, opponents may over-push to punish
> 2. Clock, as perhaps mentioned? Since many moves can be played automatically, you gain a clock advantage. This is mentioned (on the fly) by GothamChess in one of his YT videos on the Naroditsky - Ra3 games
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the human play the move 2. Ra3. I'm suggesting that you make the engine play this opening because it likely takes you away from openings/patterns you have experience with. You then, may play more poorly (either by over-pushing or simple unfamiliarity with the position) against this than against other openings you could make the engine play (this was one of your suggestions and I quite liked it).
The other thing is that my idea could be wrong, and that's fine. It's an empirical question that I don't know the answer to yet. The fun part is trying it out to see. I agree that there may be psychological factors (including time pressure, nervousness about an unfamiliar line) that could turn out to be most important, but we won't know if that's the case until we test those ideas.