Stockfish And I Don't Get Along
Hi, everyone! Today's post will be a little different than the usual game analysis... because I'm trash when I play, and I don't want my hundreds of readers to have to witness the horrifying incidents that occur when I sit down to play! 
OK, I'm partly joking. I wanted to share something I ran into when I was "studying" chess. I was studying a line of the Grunfeld (PSA: playing against it, NOT actually playing it 
), and decided to reference the Chess.com opening book for some example games. This game where a 2300 FM was White vs an 1800 caught my eye because when studying master games in a specific opening, I try to look for mismatches where the higher-rated player knew the opening way better.
This is probably the most irrelevant paragraph of the post, but the two players were Alisher Suleymenov, from Kazakhstan, who ended up reaching IM and peaked at nearly 2500 FIDE, while his opponent, Elizaveta Titievskaya of Russia sadly never crossed 1800 FIDE (way better than me though 🤡).
Wait, am I leaking prep by revealing all of this? Bleh, whatever. Here is the position I was looking at:
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In the position above, White is clearly dominating, as they were able to utilize their "Grunfeld Center", and their pieces are waayyy more coordinated than Black's. White had just played 18. d6, and Black responded with 18... exd6. During the game, I was trying to think somewhat critically about certain responses. When I was glancing at this position, I thought that White could play 19. Rxd6, so that on 19... Nxd6 20. Nxd6, which results in the position below:
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In the position above, White is down an exchange (one rook for one minor piece)... however, White's position is completely dominating. For starters, White has two threats, taking the Queen, and Nxf7, which would shatter Black's position. Not to mention that Black has to move the Queen, and they are extremely limited in squares. For example, Qd7, Rd1, and White asserts his dominance. Just in case you're wondering, the position is +2 with stunningly accurate play by Black.
HOWEVER
After d6, exd6, Nxd6, I turn on Stockfish, and realize how much I hate Stockfish. If you're having trouble following along, here's a board!
So in case that was all complicated, basically, Rxd6 is a blunder NOT because it loses material, but because Black gets a steaming initiative with Nh4, and Qh3 in some lines, and White's advantage starts to fizzle. But if you take one thing from this post: Stockfish will crush your dreams.
Here is the game, for anyone who wants to review!
I hope you enjoyed this post, and were able to follow along in the analysis. Oh, and, um, let me know what you think about posts like these, where I share random chess discoveries that I'll probably forget in a week.
Until next time! 
