Why do people play this terrible gambit?

Faithless Cresid! Faithless fickle computers, letting us down when we really fall in love with them.

Hear the lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly

Does anyone have fun playing chess, or are we going mad trying to figure it out?

@testaccount42 If played correctly, white builds up a powerful file pressure along the d and c files and it is a very legitimate opening.

@Onyx_Chess Your view of the engine is close-minded. I started chess as an adult. All the games on this account and the puzzles I've done are the only experience I've had with chess. I guess if I'm completely honest some videos of ben finegold and agadmator in the background while I work too. But that's it. I'm okay with 1800-1900 after 1500 games played. Maybe its not fast, but my growth isn't "stunted". If I looked at opening theory at all or decided to study end games I'd probably improve a bit pretty quickly. Its just no1 has made something like tactical puzzles that I can do on my phone while commuting (at stoplights, not while driving) for end games or opening theory. The engine has never let me down and I bet it wouldn't until well above your rating. So while it took you longer to type that speech than I've spent playing chess in the last month, its just not true. I love it as a hobby so I'm improving at a hobby pace. As for you, you'd probably improve your stunted growth if you used the engine more.

Edit: Wait, hold up.

"WARNING:

When it comes to engines, a very important note that I noticed in myself and with others, is that incorrect usage can thoroughly demotivate and effectively show chess players the door.

After 17 years of chess, I finally bought Fritz 9 in 2005. I took my first break due to chess-exhaustion in 2005. "

17 years??!?! Was that a copypasta or did you actually write this? The new engines are really good compared to 2005. Use it more, one hobbyist to another. Sorry for calling your growth stunted, I just feel bad now. Nothing is wasted time if you enjoy doing it, except drugs. Remember that.

@testaccount42 I have to say, you sound like a creature from another planet. Playing chess in a car, while traveling? -- even at stoplights. Hold it, slow down, live a true life in rhythm with the universe. You know nothing of chess history or culture? -- only what you got from a computer game. This is not a hostile attack. This is me saying, what? At stoplights, look out at the people and the landscape, the trees and bushes, the cats and birds and lizards. Don't live a narrow life with blinders. (Those are things used on horses to keep them from looking at the side, only straight ahead at the tunnel.)
Some of us lived many years before computers were invented, and life was okay then also. Computers are not the center of the universe -- actually not even an important part of the universe. Seriously I say, don't let life sail past you while you are looking at your screen. By the way, there are lots of other weird openings. Chess is almost as unlimited as the real world.
I know this sounds like a crazy rant. And thanks for starting a quite entertaining thread.

@sparowe14 Tactical puzzles. Great at stoplights. Look at one, light turns green, put phone down, think about it until next stoplight. There's not that many animals on the road where I live. That sounds like some tar pit level deathtrap where the lizard gets run over, then a bird tries to eat it and it gets run over, then the cat goes out looking for the bird, and so on.

I try to go hiking every couple of weeks to get out with nature. Computers are more of an essential than a luxury for younger generations when it comes to being competitive. Don't know how to get information quick from using them all the time and your career perishes. Not everyone is addicted to them because they want to be though wanting it helps. It helps more with lower end information, I was pretty much 1600 when I started because I had a chess computer to play against a few times before facing humans. Since then, only gone up another couple of hundred points.

Considering your phone is best off behind the driver's seat. I may use the hands free device when I get any while putting my phone as a GPS. Nevertheless, how do you think chess has been without engines? Particularly when mentioned by me Mikhail Tal was in his prime. Chess engines are useful, I even am doing my thesis on them. I study computer science. But as a future programmer I'm just gonna say it - machines only assist humans. Behind every machine stands a man. And it's best to work together. But don't rely only on engines to analyze your games and solve positions. Otherwise you won't have the thought a real person says. That's why I'm here. Even if I still don't always get the chess I want, even if I don't always meet the players I want to meet, still I play with people. Even such who play this gambit, correctly or not.

Funny,

@testaccount42

I was watching the development of your conversation and noticed a few things,

1. Your original comment.

"I see it too often and I don't get what it does. It doesn't give them an attack, it doesn't let them get their pieces out before me, it doesn't do anything except lose quickly. I want good games, and every time I see this I check out because I know the game is going to be dull. I see it way too often. The only way I'd ever lose to it is if I got bored and fell asleep. Tired of seeing it."

This shows two things. Either you are someone who is completely ignorant of the opening you speak of, or you're a computer. Or both.. My initial comment had I not noticed this post spanned at least 7 pages would have been, "If this is true, you should play "MasterofMeyhem" and then come back and tell us the only way you would lose is if you got bored and fell asleep.

2. I noticed as the conversation evolved, you started learning that your original comment was completely wrong, but no where in your rebuttals have you admitted you were wrong. You simply change things to show that you had an "opinion". You lost more than a few times where you couldn't have claimed you fell asleep, but yet you maintain you didn't change your assessment.

3. When someone mentions that you would have to be a GM to make the claims you did, you give GM examples. Not even giving examples of the losses. Just simply giving your examples as if they forward your cause to prove "the gambit is bad." The problem with this is you still can't really make the claim you did. You made a VERY specific claim. It was proven wrong scientifically. So in order to maintain your position you have to reevaluate your position and logically change the "opinion".

Last: You can claim a gambit is unsound. But you can't claim it is unplayable or refuted if you can't refute it and prove it's refuted. This is simple logical science. Now, back to the unsound. If you claim an opening is unsound, you have to contend with the people that claim it is sound. In this case, the smith-morra has people who commit a lot of time studying this opening. And they are ALL higher rated than you are. So the question is. Why are you correct and people like IM Marc Esserman, IM Mark Ginsberg, GM Alexander Lenderman, GM Jesse Kraai, GM Mesgen Amanov who all claim that the gambit is at least sound, and some of them have based a lot of their career on the gambit. Notably both IM Esserman, and GM Lenderman played the gambit through IM. GM Lenderman was noted to stop the gambit to obtain the GM title, but I don't think he believed it was unsound. You are beating your head against a proverbial wall in this conversation. And what you should do is admit you were wrong with your original post and formulate a new opinion.

Do you want to maintain it is unsound? Fine.. Repost this and give some games that prove you can play this with at least a 60% win ratio against opposition of 2000+. And if you can do that, give reasons why your losses should not be held to serious account. And you probably should not make outrageous claims when it's obvious the reason you disrespected the opening was out of blatant ignorance rather than honest due diligence. And that last sentence is the main reason you are being treated as a common troll throughout this thread. I hope you read this and take it seriously. At the very least the admit that your original post was wrong could give a little respect back.

@MeWantCookieMobile There are a bunch of GMs that have made careers out of playing really bad openings. Who wins a game isn't just about the opening. I maintain I wouldn't have gotten up 5 points (which is grossly winning) before blundering in the midgame if the 2200 I played had played a more sound opening. Old theory is old, I do what the computer likes because it maximizes my chances. Some people like tricks which is fine though personally I think there's less boring ones than this gambit.

If this was really about me being unwilling to admit I was wrong, there wouldn't be 7 pages of people typing lengthy paragraphs trying to refute my points. They would just chalk it up to my ignorance and move on. Not that everyone's points have been bad, there's been plenty of good ones, not the character attacks though, those are just kind of weird.

You missed my point. Your original post is wrong. It's been proven. The rest I don't care about. You people can debate till mickey mouse turns blue in the face on whether or not the Morra is sound. The fact remains, you can't refute it. And you can't use an engine to refute it. If you can't play a game and refute it without assistance there is no refutation.

@testaccount42 One strange aspect of modern life is that people tend to be alone, communicating electronically, not face to face. That allows them (us) to not think of the person on the other end as a human and say outrageous things we would not likely say in person. This forum topic is a good example. If we were in the same room, we would probably be more considerate and measured in what we say.