The latest issue of the Informant (#152) was just published, and browsing through Mihail Marin’s “Old Wine in New Bottles” column I came across the following remark in his analysis of the game Jumabayev - Indjic from the 2022 Olympiad (here, with my cursory notes):
Here it is [Black’s 14…a5 - DM], the unusual way of displaying the pawns. Black is supposed to keep the flexibility of his structure in order to have the latent threat of ...b5, but here the queenside safety is the most important factor. Moreover, the knight gets access to b4. Due to the haging d6-pawn, the knight's development to d7 would have required investing an additional tempo.
The last move had been played in few correspondence games. (RR Sanchez Carol,Jesus - Sutton,Alan, corr 2021; Almarza Mato,Carlos - Mondy,Marcel, corr 2021; Walczak,Piotr - Petrovic,Djordje R, corr 2021/22)
Since in correspondence chess we frequently see moves beyond the usual common sense, it is right to credit Indjic as an over-the-board innovator.
In previous games, Black usually prepared ...Nd7, but this allowed White to set up the desired queenside pressure.
The bolded text (the emphasis is mine) grabbed me, and not in a good way. First of all, how do we know that Indjic didn’t get the idea by paying attention to those earlier correspondence games? Second, how do we know that both Indjic and his predecessors in correspondence chess didn’t all get the move from the same source: the engine? You will not - or at least should not - be surprised to learn that 14…a5 is the engine’s top choice. And humans, whether amongst the rank-and-file or at the very top of the food chain, have been deferring to our silicon overlords for years when it comes to opening analysis. (That doesn’t mean that we’re purely passive consumers without any ideas of our own, but the primacy of the engine has been a given for a long time now.)
Third, while Marin may not have meant it this way, his remark that “in correspondence chess we frequently see moves beyond the usual common sense” sounds condescending. One need not be a 2600-rated grandmaster, as Indjic is, to know that …a5 just isn’t done in the Modern Benoni. It creates a gaping hole on b5, gifts White the c4 square in perpetuity, and immobilizes Black’s queenside majority. Indjic’s predecessors were very likely susceptible to the same prejudices about …a5 that he was, and would through their analysis have come to realize that the move had its virtues as well. It would be amazing if Indjic found the move at the board, but he used 43 seconds on the move, according to the relay on Chess24.
When I was a kid, I had a reputation in some local chess circles for my book knowledge. This was at least sometimes offered as a sort of implicit criticism: why, if they just studied chess as much as I did, then they’d be just as good as I was, if not better! This didn’t really bother me back then - I was perfectly happy beating them - but I didn’t really analyze their remarks for some time. Now, my inclination is to find the remarks extraordinarily daft. Why would I not learn from others? How is it prudent to ignore what all the greats of the game have learned with their hard work? Wouldn’t that be either incredibly arrogant or stupid? Note: I’m not at all denying the value of independent thought or looking for new and rare paths. I’ve done a fair amount of that, too. Both/and is fine; the objection is to learning only by one’s own errors. Life is way too short for that.
So, friends: learn from Mihail Marin, who has written some fine books and columns. Learn from Aleksandar Indjic, especially - if you’re a Modern Benoni player - from his fine against Rinat Jumabayev. And learn from the engine, and from correspondence players (who are putting engine analysis to the strictest test we’re capable of at the moment), and from anyone else you can, too.