For the game I am sharing today I changed the way the analysis is done for the notation. For this game and the ones that are coming in the future I will be using Fritz 16's Full Analysis function, which will do a tactical analysis for the full game. There will still be reference games in the notation, but there will also be engine evaluations and at what depth it was taken from. For instance, after the move 10...Nd4 it says in the notation 0.57/24, which means that the position in White's favor for 0.57 pawns and the engine came to that conclusion at depth 24. At least I think the number after the forward slash is the depth, I could not confirm that when I was looking into it. If someone reading this has better knowledge of it and disagrees with this, do let me know in the comments. There will be also some diagrams in the notation and at the end of the notation there is a comment where it says how precisely both players played the game, which in my opinion is a good addition to the analysis. The precision was not good for either player in this game, but then again this was a blitz game and neither player is that high rated, so inaccurate play is expected.
Both 1.e4 and the reply c5 (1174330 games, score 50.6%) are the most played moves. While I have tried to play the Sicilian a few times, it has never been something that I would like to play with either color. 2.Nf3 (1028045 games, score 51%) followed the path of most often played moves. The next move, 2...Nc6 (317478 games, score 51.8%), was the 2nd most played move. The most played move being 2...d6 (418805 games, score 51.4%). Next I followed the path that most players had taken with the move 3.d4 (212068 games, score 51.8%). While it is not the only move played in the position, the reply 3...cxd4 (211026 games, score 50.9%), is by far the most popular move. The second most played move is 3...e6 (572 games, score 74.9%). The same pattern of most played moves continued when I played 4.Nxd4 (209948 games, score 50.8%). Then Kojjootti played 4...e5 (25575 games, score 52%), which is the 3rd most commonly played move in my reference database. More often seen are the moves 4...Nf6 (103994 games, score 50.4%) and 4...g6 (46572 games, score 50.5%).
Clearly the most played move was played by me next, as I moved my knight to b5, which has appeared in 20830 games with a score of 54.4%. The next move, 5...d6 (14450 games, score 51.8%), is the most played move and it is a move that has been played by strong Grand Masters like Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Garry Kasparov and Teimour Radjabov. The game continued to follow the game between Magnus Carlsen (2862) and Yifan Hou (2673), played at the 77th Tata Steel Masters on January 17th, 2015, up to my next move 6.c4 (4858 games, score 52.8%). 6.c4 is the second most popular move in the position, only behind the move 6.Nc3 (7888 games, score 50.8%). Kojjootti was the first one to deviate from that game with the move 6...a6 (596 games, score 62.4%), which is the 3rd most often occurred move. The choice of the strongest players and most players reaching the position has been 6...Be7 (3385 games, score 50.6%). It was also the move that Yifan Hou played in the game against Magnus Carlsen. The second most often played move is 6...Be6 (615 games, score 52.3%).
The next move, 7.N5a3 (213 games, score 58.7%), I have played pretty much automatically in this same position, but with this analysis I have seen that highest rated players prefer to play 7.N5c3 (381 games, score 64.3%) instead, so I probably should change to it as well, especially since it scores better than the move I have previously chosen. I have played 7.N5a3 for the reason that I have wanted to develop my other knight to c3. We then followed the game between Paolo Capitelli (2161) and Rolly Martinez (2360), played at Verona on January 2nd, 2005, up to the move 9...O-O. The move 7...Nf6 is the most often played move and it has appeared in 106 games with a score of 58.1, according to my database that is. The next move 8.Nc3 (102 games, score 58.9%) is also the most popular option in the position. The same goes for the reply 8...Be7 (195 games, score 61.9%). The strongest players that have chosen the move 8...Be7 are Arkadij Naiditsch (2705) and Rauf Mamedov (2650), to name only the two strongest players. The game continued with the main move 9.Be2 (214 games, score 54.2%).
Then Kojjootti played 9...O-O, a move that was also played by GM John D M Nunn against Comp Mephisto 68020 in 1992, for instance. Next I also decided to castle and by so doing followed the blitz game between Thomas Luther (2577) and Eugeny Atarov, played on April 14th, 2004. The move my opponent chose next, 10...Nd4 (26 games, score 50%), which is the 2nd most common move in the position, has not been played by any Grand Master, at least according to my reference database. Most popular move has been 10...Be6 (53 games, score 56.6%). I then decided to save my bishop pair by playing 11.Bd3 (2 games, score 25%, 3rd most popular move), but it was too passive and I should have played 11.Nc2 (31 games, score 45.2%) instead, which is also the main move in the position. The 2nd most often played move is 11.Be3 (15 games, score 53.3%). It was then replied with the move 11...Bg4 (2 games, score 50%), which is barely the most often played move. In both games it was answered by 12.f3, like in my game. In both of those games the next move was 12...Be6, so the move 12...Bh5 that my opponent played in this game is a novelty.
Here are some of the latest and highest rated games that reached the position after 9.Be2.
