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Unpopular opinion: choosing an unpleasant line for your opponent which objectively gives nothing for White, or doesn't equalize for Black is a much better PRACTICAL choice than following engine's top lines that don't pose as many practical problems as a "dubious" sideline 1/10
I see a trend of praising only the lines which are approved by the strongest engines, and the ones that give +0.45 for White are considered unplayable for Black - that's why we see the evaporation of the King's Gambit on a grandmaster level. 2/10
This doesn't make any sense, because everything should depend on much more circumstances than cold assumptions. For example, I very often voluntarily go for the line that gives White an objective edge, but I know that my experience will compensate for that soon 3/10
A good example is the Alekhine Defence - a gold mine for Black when you face lower-rated players. Yes, White is better in all lines, but Black is rarely under any attack and has easy plans of countering White's centre and it is harder to prepare against 1... Nf6 then 1...c5 4/10
A trend amongst club players is to learn many lines very deeply, even when people don't have a feel for the arising positions. I prefer to go for the lines where I understand what is going on, even if objectively I give up a part of the "objective advantage" 5/10
I decided to post about it during my work on my 8th @chessable course because I walked into the position that might be a good example. I quite often voluntarily went even for +1.5 when playing Black, because I knew that a surprising value is quite huge and it should work 6/10
This is probably the best example. ... Ng4 combined with ... Qb6 is a big mistake according to the engines, but it scored me 3/3 so far in rapid or blitz OTB including one game vs a grandmaster. The problem for White is that if unprepared, he won't find Nd5! giving up f2 7/10
And this is the only way for White to get a big edge! Even if unsound, this line is FOR ME a better practical choice in faster time controls, because normally after e5, Black takes on e5 and soon has to part with the light-squared Bishop and White has a squeeze 8/10
The 2nd example is where I voluntarily went for 5... g5 against Alekhine's Four Pawns. A large mistake according to the engine, but I've beaten my 2300+ rated opponent in less than 30 moves after only 2-3 inaccuracies from him. Also, 5...g5 scores over 50% for Black! 9/10
A conclusion: use the lines that you feel are good for you, which you understand well, even if the engine disagrees. Have some fun in chess and don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't do that because the engines "killed" the line a long time ago 10/10
