My last 65 games on
chess.com have been only with this opening, which I find fascinating and a contribution to chess theory (at least in blitz). My normal rating on
chess.com is around 2950 - 3050, and in these 65 games I performed with a 2950 performance (40/65 vs avg 2840 opponent). If we take a naive iid binomial model, this is around 2950 +/- 100 with 95% CI, which in spite of the very strong assumptions, I think this is pretty accurate.
There are 1-2 setups which I find almost impossible to play against. In my experience, I struggle most against strong positional players, like gm_dmitrij or Sarana (although I managed to win one against Sarana). In my engine analysis, I didn't manage to find a good way to complicate the position in these structures. In fact, I even lost some games to players substantially lower rated (three or four hundred points) in these lines, while performing very admirably against 3000 opponents in more 'normal' setups. My suspicion, for instance, is that I would struggle heavily against
@RealDavidNavara , since in our games I normally don't tend to get much dynamic success. But against other opponents I could do much better.
Looking at the games Danya played, I can say that he chose a fairly poor setup for both the white and black side, and I think one that gives white many more chances. That being said, Danya is much stronger than the average opponent I played, and well, it is hard to judge these things. Perhaps Danya's more tactical approach also went against him in these games.
I can more or less tell within the first 5-10 moves whether I will have very good chances of winning, or lose without much of a fight. Overall, it's an interesting line, and very fun to play. The positions generally tend to be complicated and dynamic, outside of 1-2 lines.
One final note I'd like to make is that even in engine testing, it still scores fairly decently. SF 16 vs SF 11 at 10s + 0.1s increment on my computer scored about 30-40% as white from 1. a4 e5 2. Ra3, and I would like to point out that SF 11, even at 10s + 0.1s increment, approach the level of a strong grandmaster in classical. In fact, even in my blitz games, many of the games I lost I had either a winning position at some point or some fantastic chances.
Cheating discussion aside, which are not very fruitful, I would not dismiss this opening so offhandedly. Don't we play chess to find new ideas and look for the unexpected? At the very least, it is a good exercise in defense and generating counterplay. It is interesting to play positions with material imbalance and try to fight.
