The sicilian is currently black's most active attempt at combating white's 1. e4. It's statistically the most successful method as well. In the 4million+ games covered by megabase 2009 you have the following percentage scores:

e4 e5: 56.3%
e4 e6: 53.8%
e4 c6: 53.8%
e4 c5: 50.7%

The sicilian is scoring by far the best. And I think it's also the most fun to play! Of course there's alot of theory, so this post is meant to be a guide of how to play a side variation of the sicilian that's quite sound but also avoids many of the complicated systems. The great thing is that this line often just transposes into systems where black is simply better, or at least scoring very well.

I'm not going to talk about the anti-sicilians. They are of course a fine option for white, but the problem with the open sicilian is that black can play seemingly natural moves and just get crushed by a theoretically prepared and tactically sharp white. You're not going to be getting crushed by anti-sicilians too often. They are often also played by white players who are attempting to avoid theory, so they're typically not particularly sharp or immediately dangerous. Play logical moves and you'll get good positions.

So here is the main idea:

1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 e6



There are obviously alot of options here for black. e6 has alot of purposes. The most direct is to prepare an eventual d5 and also freeing black's dark bishop. A nice aside is that it also restricts white options since the lines with Bb5+ stuff are no longer possible.

3. d4

The most dangerous option. White says he's willing to enter the open sicilian.

3. .. cxd

4. Nxd4 Qb6!?



And here we go.

So this move probably looks quite awkward at first. First let me make it clear that this isn't some trappy coffee house variation or whatever. It's perfectly sound and has been played by no less than players such as Polgar, Ivanchuk, Nigel Short, etc.

The idea of this move is very simple and positional. Black would like to force white's very strong d4 knight to a much more passive square. The d4 knight is often the spear head of white in the sicilian. If black can neutralize it then he can hope to obtain the normal advantages of the sicilian without so much worry about the incredibly sharp tactical mainline open sicilian variations.

So what are white's options? He has basically 3 options.

5. Nb3: This is actually probably his best option. It also immediately satisfies the goals of Qb6. Black's idea is to then immediately play Qc7. Black has given up a tempo, but white has relegated his knight to a much more passive position. Black can now continue the game with natural moves relatively safely. A basic development scheme being Nf6/a6/b5/Bb7. A big advantage here being that black maintains the flexibility of deciding exactly where to develop his queenside knight and his dark bishop. You get a game where theory becomes somewhat less important and just playing good chess becomes much more important which was the point of this thread!

There are a couple of warnings here. Black should be very careful about playing the d5 thrust prematurely. White can gather up quite an initiative even in some innocuous looking positions. It's probably best to just learn this from experience, but d6 is often a better move than d5. And be careful about going pawn hunting with Bb4 and then Bxc3+/Qxc3. White will frequently allow this if you so desire, but again - it's quite dangerous for black to take this offer especially if he is not yet castled.

Our desired and obtained position:



5. Nc3: This seemingly natural move is not good. After 5. .. Bc5 black forces a a favorable decision.

6. Na4 Qa5+ 7. c3 Bxd4 8. Qxd4 Nf6



And black has a pleasant position. White's only challenging move here is

9. Nc5 when after 9. .. Nc6 10. Qe3 O-O 11. Nb3 Qa4!

black has a very nice position with no problems. A sample game from this game being Topalov-Short Novgorod(9) 1997 where Topalov picked up the full point after a tense 60 move fight.

This is just a start but it should be more than enough to get started. After all, the idea of this system is to not have to bother with theory so much!

Erm small correction. In Topalov-Short Novgorod(9) Short is the one who picked up the full point. No strong black player has ever lost that position in tournament practice (in my database) with the exception of Giovanni Vescovi who obtained a perfectly good position but went wrong in the middle game.

And as an aside. Something I wanted to avoid mentioning since it might give the wrong impression about the purpose of this opening, but black can certainly get a crushing game if white does not play accurately himself. I played this miniature about 2 minutes ago against a decentish (about 2000) player:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qb6 5. Nc3 Bc5 6. Na4 Qa5+ 7. c3 Bxd4 8.
Qxd4 Nf6 9. b3 Nc6 10. Qd3 O-O 11. Be2 Ne5 12. Qc2 d5 13. f4 Ng6 14. e5 Ne4 15.
b4 Qc7 16. O-O Bd7 17. b5 Rac8 18. Bd2 Qa5 19. Be1 Bxb5 20. Bxb5 Qxb5 21. Rb1
Qc6 22. c4 b5 23. Nc3 Qxc4 0-1

I think the interesting thing is that black made absolutely nothing but the most natural moves possible. The only move that was remotely unnatural was 22. .. b5 but the game was long since over before that.

And as one other side note, in my games on ICC in the basic starting position after e4 c5 nf3 e6 d4 cxd Nxd4 Qb6, I have results of +76 =6 -53 for a net result of playing nearly 100 elo points above my expectation based on ratings (which is pretty damn sick for black!). And that includes the absolutely huge number of losses that it took for me to completely learn/believe that playing a very early d5 is not, in fact, a good idea.

Dire,

would a queenside fianchetto be a terrible idea from this position?

Dire,

You seem to have a talent for opening play. By that I mean that you seem to be able to play against very strong opposition without knowing much theory and yet navigate the uncharted waters very ably. I think that you should start a thread about opening principles and how to play well against unfamiliar opening systems. I would definitely get out the popcorn.

Not at all! That's one very important idea. Since a6/b5/Bb7 accomplishes alot of things. Not only does it develop your bishop to a great diagonal, but it also prepares queenside pressure and also puts even more pressure on e4/d5. In general, if black can play d5 in these sort of systems without serious problems then he has basically immediately equalized and often may even be simply better.

Playing well in positions like this is not some major feat at all, which is why I'm sharing this exact variation! The entire system is just so fundamentally sound and positionally oriented that it's really hard to go wrong unless black decides he just wants too much.

The whole point here is that white's Nb3 is, by far, the most challenging reply. But at the same time, it takes alot of the sting out of white's typical open sicilian.

Here's an example of the transpositional possibilities:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qb6 5. Nb3 Qc7 6. Nc3 a6 7. Bd3 Nf6 8.
O-O b5 9. a3 Bb7 10. f4 d6

And after 10. .. d6 you've obtained a position where you'll find some nice company, including no less than Kasparov. It's also a position where the overall score is a whopping 40% in black's favor. Same position, but a much safer route to get there.

I was inspired to try this out! So it's like my first game goes
1. e4 c5
2. d4

wtf is this crap

Another reminder of why I never play 2....nf3 vs the sicilian and never will. The alapin variation is simply better imo.

Great post though, I will definetly try this out as black.

lol.

Well it's one of the reasons to play the sicilian! The smith morra (assuming he followed up your cxd with c3) definitely has a bit of sting the first couple of times you play it, but white just doesn't have enough compensation for the pawn.

The key is to just play a6/e6 and then just slowly get untangled, often while just leaving your queen on d8.

Good work Dire, this is a nice choice of variation. What we need next is some discussion of hedgehog structures Maybe also when/if Bb4 is a good idea for black in this line?

Pfff, the Morra is sound. It's not the greatest response to the Sicilian, but if Black ends up with an edge after fifteen perfect moves by both sides it's a very small one.

It's not unsound like it's losing, but it's such a trap-dependent opening. As long as black is competent, there are 4 or 5 fairly straightforward ways to at least equalize (I tend to think they're more =/+).

I actually tend to get += positions even against competent opponents, but then I consider Black's queen being on b8 with White free to pursue a kingside attack to be compensation almost in and of itself.

Curiously, the two parts of that sentence do no make any sense when combined.

Sure they do. I'm tempted to explain why but I'm not going to.

Actually that's yet another benefit of this variation. I have yet to find a decent way for white to force a 'good' hedgehog positions as he frequently can against kan type setups. Since a6 is delayed black has an extra tempo, which means white typically does not have enough time to get in c4 without running into major problems.

Like the immediate 5. c4 simply loses to Bc5. And on something like 5. Nb3 Qc7 6. c4 Nf6 7. Nc3 black has Bb4 and you end up in a much much more dynamic position than the typical hedgehog. I think black can already equalize with d5 if he wants, or he can go more dynamic with something like Bxc3+ and pressure on c4, or he can also just play typical hedgehog positions with Be7/etc if that suits his style.

Brief sidenote on this opening:

Dire obviously has good feel for these positions, enjoys playing them, and believes in black's chances. His writings on the opening will be very interesting and instructive to 90% of this forum, and there is no reason why the lines should not be playable OTB at amateur levels.

This said, it is obviously not a "magic elixir" that just gives black a good Sicilian. There's a reason it is only used as a sideline by top players: It's not as good an opening as the Najdorf, Sveshnikov, or other more mainstream responses to 1. e4 (Marshall, Petroffs, etc). Black's high percentage score in Sicilians is attributable mainly to anti-sicilians and the main lines, not this sideline.

If anyone disagrees with this statement, I suppose I can try to 'prove' it when I'm not writing a research paper due tomorrow . Chess is, after all, a game of moves rather than opinions.

Edit: This is in no way intended to diminish an excellent thread; I just thought it was a relevant comment about the opening.

I guess the theoretical problem is that quite often White's knight ends up retreating to b3 anyway, so Black may end up in a position where he is just down a tempo.

Quickfetus, I'm not suggesting this is some magic solution to give black a great game against e4. But at the same time, I've played this position against tons of IMs, some GMs and never have problems getting a great position.

If you have any challenging lines they'd be great discussion!

EDIT: And obv, if it's enough to take down Topalov - this isn't exactly some mediocre opening praying for chances against bad play.

EDIT 2: You are also incorrect about something else. Black is scoring incredibly well in this sideline, at all levels. I'm not entirely sure why it hasn't caught on more.

Dire,

When I have time, I'll definitely do a bit of research to find white resources. I disagree with the Topalov comment; Karpov lost to the St. George's Defense against Miles.

I stand corrected about the statistics; as you might have assumed, I haven't looked them up myself . I do suspect that this is largely due to widespread white unfamiliarity with the opening, though. Once it becomes better known the results will normalize.

First of all, great thread, Dire. For anybody looking to take up the Sicilian for the first time, this would be a great place to start. I normally recommend the Taimanov and this is sort of Taimanov/Kan-lite.

With that said, the rest of my post is just starting to look at this theoretically and see how useful it would be against decent OTB competition. Let's face it, it's always nice to have a backup. Generally speaking, the Sicilian is so positionally sound that black can get away with some slightly non-standard maneuvers (O'Kelly, Nimzovich, etc) Also an early Qb6 has gained in popularity recently For example, the Grivas (2 ... Nc6 4 ... Qb6) and Ga-Pa (2 ... e6 4 ... Nf6 5 ... Qb6) exist so why shouldn't this? Experts vs the Sicilian recommends 5. Nc3. I used Mega Database 2008 to glance at the statistics. Cliff notes: White does worse vs this defense than average (+15 ELO vs +35 ELO). However, when filtered for games between players who were both > 2200, white scored +42. 5. Be3 scores well in both groups, while 5. Nc3 scores much better in the group filtered by ELO.

Statistics

• Filtered only for the position after 4 ... Qb6
  
  Code:

  Total Games	White %		ELO	Performance
  1751		51.3		2197	2212

• Filtered for the position after 5. Nb3
  
  Code:

  Total Games	White %		ELO	Performance
  1245		52.1		2205	2224

• Filtered for 5. Nc3
  Code:

  Total Games	White %		ELO	Performance
  338		50.6		2215	2230

• Filtered for 5. Be3
  
  Code:

  Total Games	White %		ELO	Performance
  31		64.5		2293	2312

• Filtered for Both ELO > 2200 + 4 ... Qb6
  
  Code:

  Total Games	White %		ELO	Performance
  574		55.5		2389	2436

• Filtered for Both ELO > 2200 + 5. Nb3
  
  Code:

  Total Games	White %		ELO	Performance
  410		52.7%		2375	2407

• Filtered for Both ELO > 2200 + 5. Nc3
  
  Code:

  Total Games	White %		ELO	Performance
  126		61.5		2423	2504

• Filtered for Both ELO > 2200 + 5. Be3
  
  Code:

  Total Games	White %		ELO	Performance
  13		65.4		2408	2523

I'm going to try this one.

I've always played for Scheveningens, using the Najdorf move order, but some lines are difficult. It sucks to face two dozen moves of grandmaster theory in the main line Bg5 when your opponent is much weaker. It sucks to face the Keres/English Attack/Perenyi (all lines with an early g4 for white) when your opponent loves these positions and loves to attack and maybe isn't so good on defense.

So I was trying out the Kan. It is hilarious when players try to play g4 lines and my knight isn't even on f6 yet. But the c4 lines are annoying too.

I'm curious what the downsides might be.