Back to the Sicilian

A few weeks ago a chess friend asked me how my score was with Scandinavian defense, and I looked it up for recent games. About 80% for 720 games. He was impressed but also wrote that he thinks that the Scandinavian defense easily gives white a good game.

After that, some days later, I read this article by GM Smirnov :

http://www.expert-chess-strategies.com/chess-games.html

And especially this part made me think :

But I will not recommend the Scandinavian to you, as I don't want, that you waste a lot of time learning and playing an inferior opening system, like I did. White is scoring very well in the Scandinavian and this opening is not played in top level chess. Play the Sicilian or play 1...e5 instead.

I know that some lines of the Scandinavian defense are bad for black, and the stronger players often know that. And some lines are quite drawish.

So I decided to go play Sicilian again, as I don't like e7e5 as black so much.

Years ago I played Sicilian already as black, and did spend quite some time reading and analysing.

So far I get mixed results (80% out of 85 games, but bad losses and draws included) but maybe it is a matter of keep on playing and analysing.

Here's a few games :