I am learning very late in life that you need to learn the theory, not just think for yourself. Case in point on the ICC yesterday when I played a set of moves I always thought was obvious as white: 1.d4 e6 2: c4 Nf6 3:Nc3 Bb4 4:Bd2 d5 (Diagram below).
Well – Dasher’s crafty had already been suggesting e3 instead of Bd2 on the previous move, but with a score of 0.01 at the moment it looks OK. That score, though, was assuming that I did do e3 this time round. Ignoring e3 now was an immediate disaster. I chose 5: cXd5 and guess what crafty thought of that?
Well – after 58.1 Million nodes tested, it gave a bit of a no-no. But if you are like me and a very average human chess player, the situation is much worse. Crafty was still saying -0.5 until it got thought that far down. Either way, not doing e3 was the start of a slippery slope. I lost.
Moral for the average player (like me): Develop at the opening instead of sacking things half-cock.
