@anthonycg

"The difference between a blackbelt and a class player is that the blackbelt has already proven their knowledge. A class player has done no such thing"

I believe this is exactly my point. A class player should not avoid something because the are fearful of it or have an excuse to play something that is perfectly sound like an anti sicilian when the real purpose is to avoid learning something they are uncomfortable or unfamilar with. You dont become a blackbelt by avoiding learning a certain group of throws (in judo) becuase you dont like them... 

PS Im a brownbelt 

But my reasons for avoiding it are for strategical reasons. Why play into some position that my opponent is familiar with when there are many other options that can unbalance the game and make my opponent uncomfortable?

You have seen first hand players that seem to be "experts" on many different openings but have tremendous trouble with the simple Parham opening. I think most of this comes from the fact that it is an open game...

I don't believe that it is neccessary at this point for me to even bother with openings when it is simpler to win by playing moves that require little to no study. It is a lot easier to play moves that create tactical problems for the opponent rather than to try and understand opening lines better than they do because that is usually what decides who wins at club level.

you seem to have a disconnect. your assuming that a sicilian player is uncomfortable in a given position, I am certainly not uncomfortable in any anti sicilain. I actually am happy because I figure my opponent lacks a certain skill set so is avoiding something that I can use as a weapon. 

I think most players who feel they are experts in an particular opening are infact not (meaning class players) . So my seeing people who are experts is really really rare. They talk a good game but I ask a few questions and they start to shrug their shoulders and make some sort of strange quote. They parrot moves and claim that so and so made this move so its good but if you ask them why a move is made they lack the knowledge base to back up the purpose of the move. (I have been shown up on this very point when I used to analyze games with an IM i knew that was very free with his time. I could parrot a move but I couldnt "punish" a second best mvoe)

Again my point is that if you want to LEARN about something play it & study it. Trust me when i say that players your level know jack about the sicilian. A 1600 player who plays the siclian is still 1600. Maybe they know the structures better than you currently but if you want to improve how do you plan to do that by avoiding an entire structure? sooner or later you will have to face it head on. Why not do it when your not dealing with players who are 1800-2000 that have already gained more experience and are harder to deal with?

I have trained a playerwho is 1970 USCF that will tell you up front she knows nothing about the opening. Players her level would get really mad (her words) when she would say she didnt know the best moves or theory after she beat them in a game OTB. What she DID know was how to create a plan and the plan i told her to focus on was develop and attack the center... seems to work pretty well.

Players at 1600 - 1800  know JACK about the opening and theory for the most part. past that I feel yes you need to start to have concrete knowledge but not a ton, of opening theory. The point with openings is you learning ideas and plans, Learn plan A and then move on, once you feel comfortable against players your rating its time to switch things up and change openings. When you cycle back you will be even stronger. 

If you cannt punish a mistake its not a mistake! I started to teach sicilains about 2 years ago and after that I have realized how little you really need to know to play them. people are so scared they cower in fear of some tactic or secret attack that doesnt really exist. 

Study some books that show games on the siclian and you will start to see that theory is not so I win-you lose . I loved Pfrens comment he shared from Geller. Yes the position is equal but the players are not! 
Brilliant!! If you know more chess you will win! to learn chess you must learn to play positions. open, closed, semi open etc,... 
I know about 8 moves of the taimanov combined with just a few basic ideas and it seems to get me pretty far.

This just shows how unimportant the opening is. 

its important to know what your doing from a plan perspective. I might not know the exact move theory wise but I understand the basic ideas and if I dont know what to do I just trudge along with one of those that looks like the best path. Sometimes things implode but thats how you learn. Read something interesting recently in a Mendis book and he said that 50% of your time should be used to study the opening BUT he clarified it was not MOVES but the whole process from where you start to where you are going and end up. Its kinda a lazy way of saying ok you should study middlegame plans that arise from the opening, which I do agree with. 

Knowing where you are start at doesnt mean you know where your going but it certainly gives you a stable platform to build from.

I believe Bezgodov said in the introduction of the book or in an interview that the idea of 2 a3 in the siclian was not the most challenging but he found some of the ideas interesting and basically shared his analysis in a book format for amateurs who like unusual approaches this type of book is like printing money and they buy it as an answer to a problem instead of an exploration of some interesting ideas. 

wow.. I started a long thread...