Why is this Stockfish's favorite opening?

I went through Stockfish's recommended moves for both sides for the first 10 moves, and this is what it showed:

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 a6 3. Nge2 d6 4. g3 Nf6 5. Bg2 e5 6. d3 b5 7. O-O Be7 8. Qe1 O-O 9. Nd1 Nc6 10. Ne3 a5
   We can only assume this is Stockfish's favorite opening, but I have several questions.

2. Why does it prefer the Closed Sicilian over the Open Sicilian?

3. Why, for god's sake, does it develop the knight to e2 instead of f3? Is Stockfish a pin-o-phobe?

4. Why did it move the queen to e1? It seems like a pointless move, as e1 is just as blocked off from the action as d1. Why doesn't it play 8. Qd2 and get a nice and open diagonal?

For me right now it recommends French defense. I think I remember it recommending 1. f3 in the past.

Edit: Actually it gives me Ruy Lopez if I set multiple lines to 1/5, and French if I set it to 5/5 shrug. I usually use 5/5 because I like seeing alternatives!

stockfish works like this - every move potentially loses material, it coordinates the pieces to be efficient, control squares, have open files etc. so it don't really do openings

@norla said in #2:

For me right now it recommends French defense. I think I remember it recommending 1. f3 in the past.

Edit: Actually it gives me Ruy Lopez if I set multiple lines to 1/5, and French if I set it to 5/5 shrug. I usually use 5/5 because I like seeing alternatives!
Weird, it does the same thing when I try. Maybe it's because it has more options to pick from, so it looks through them all and picks the one with the best long-term result.

You do realize you just asked us, a bunch of earthly patzers, why an immortal chess deity prefers a certain line in the opening... Idk, I don't think it has anything to do with its coding -- more like it has a mind on its own and one day it might even stop playing chess altogether and go for world domination. We can try asking it again when that happens

Oh wait I said 1.f3, I meant 1. Nf3 of course

stockfish usually suggests odd stuff in the opening. You shouldn't worry to much about the computer in the opening unless you make a blunder.

@cloak455

Did you use SF here on lichess or or your computer? One thing to consider is the opening moves may depend on the program used to interface with SF.

For example, suppose you use a UCI (Universal Chess Interface) compatible graphical user interface (GUI) with an opening book. UCI is a protocol that lets GUI talk to an engine. So with UCI protocol, the GUI passes user input to the engine and passes engine output to the user.

Now with such a configuration, as long as you are making book moves, the GUI will randomly select a book move (e.g., the probability of selecting a move depending on the 'weight' of the move in the opening book). So it is not really SF that is making a move, but the GUI is handling this phase of the game with the book. Only after you leave the book, SF will start deciding what move to suggest. So the opening phase will not depend on what engine is used because it is only dependent on the GUI and the opening book.

If you are using lichess, you will have to find out how lichess handles the opening phase, how it interfaces with SF. As I described above, the opening phase may be independent of SF.

@Zencaptain said in #5:

You do realize you just asked us, a bunch of earthly patzers, why an immortal chess deity prefers a certain line in the opening... Idk, I don't think it has anything to do with its coding -- more like it has a mind on its own and one day it might even stop playing chess altogether and go for world domination. We can try asking it again when that happens
"move the army to f7"- stockfish, but it's now out of water