How To Beat The Sicilian ?

This is my first year of chess , and I now am delving into openings.

According to a top local player , I must learn to defeat the Sicilian Defense.One player at the club uses the Sicilian ALL of the time and is a highly rated tournament player (Junior).

I wish to defeat him , but unfortunately , I cannot counter his Sicilian.

If I can defeat him , however , I should be able to defeat the majority of his opponents (He placed 2nd or 3rd in the Alberta Chess Challenge).

Please help me , as I do not know how to defeat the Sicilian.

The sicilian is a massive opening.

You have two main choices( assuming you dont want to play 1 d4 or 1 c4 or the brilliant 1 Nf3

a) you play 2) Nf3 and 3) d4 and enter a Open Sicilian in esscence you have to attack attack attack the king and hope

b) play a closed sicilian with slow postional play and hope i have gone with 2) Nf3 Nc6 and 3)Bb5 this works but is very slow. I dont like this vs ...d6 systems.

Either way its alot of work!

I like the morra smith gambit, or the c3 sici

well, there are two ways of approaching this situation (that i know of):

1. fight!-

learn some the sicilian theory (have some lines memorised. even better, learn what you are supposed to attempt to achieve in the opening by looking at high rated games ,learn which moves are promosing for an attack and which moves are not, common manuvers stc. will help you understand the opening better), you don't have to know every line by heart to beat the sicilian club player, he probably doesn't know them by heart. if you really want to understand it you should start playing it yourself, if you know what black is trying to achieve,then you can spot your opponents mistakes and then crush him with ease. study how to attack by looking at sicilian losses, study how to defend by looking at sicilian wins (for black)

2. flight-

try some antisicilian lines, examples:

the Alapin - 1.e4-c5 2.c3

the Rosselimo- 2.e4-c5 2.Nf3-Nc6 3.Bb5 (not very practical as most players play 2.d6...)

maybe something involving a Marcozy bind thingy...- 1.e4-c5 2.Nf3-d6 3.c4!?, of course, if you get 3....e5 you just end up in a weird messed up opening with some weird name like: "the whale". but if you get Nf6 and g6 you get to play something almost normal.

you can try the closed sicilian- 1.e4-c5 2.Nc3-Nc6 3.g3  the closed sicilian is a very close cousin to the KIA, if you like it. another line that is likely to transpose is: 1.e4-c5 2.Nf3-d6 3.d3 in this line you see the resemblence to the KIA and blacks formation is only slightly different, but maybe he was going to play d6 anyway.

another idea that just popped to mind is- 1.e4-c5 2.b3 the Snyder variation. not a bad choice at all.

a very popular choice against the sicilian is the Smith Morra gambit- e4-c5 d4-cxd4 c3 it gives you a gambit like game instead of the normal sicilian game.

If you chose "flight", then I have laid before you some of the lines that you can play.

If you chose "fight" then there are certain moves you can chose: 3.Nf3, 3.Nc3, 3.f4!? these are moves that give you a sicilian game. even though they have slight differences, and f4 is not recommended i may add. they are within your oppnents "theory" if he studies theory at all.

Misc: some lines you should look into:

these are the most general lines of the sicilian that you should look up before fecing a sicilian player.

"the sicilian dragon"

"the sicilian Najdorf, the siclian Kan (they transpose almost always)"

"Old sicilian"

"The closed sicilian"

"The grand prix attack"

i hope i helped.

do u no wat variation he plays in the sicilian? 

eg. dragon, accelerated dragon, najdorf, classical, taimanov, kan/paulsen, 4 knights, pin variation, kalashikov, sveshnikov...

there are some anti-sicilians which are more effective in certain situations.

eg. if he plays the najdorf (2...d6), then the grand prix attack is a bit more effective since black is less well placed to play a quick d5 (1.e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3.f4)

the two quotes "The closed sicilian", "the grand prix attack" are seperated from the rest as they begin with 1.e4-c5 Nc3 and not 1.e4-c5 Nf3.

Yes, I guess this is a good place to start. Morphy's reply (2.Nf3, 3.d4) has become the most popular choice by far and is known as the 'open' variation. This is where most of the lines you have heard of come from: Dragon, Najdorf, Sveshnikov, etc. The other popular choices are the main line closed: 1.e4 c5  2.Nc3 Nc6  3.g3 g6  4.Bg2 Bg7  5.d3 d6, the Grand Prix attack: 1.e4 c5  2.f4  or 1.e4 c5  2.Nc3 Nc6  3.f4, the Alapin: 1.e4 c5  2.c3, the Morra gambit 1.e4 c5  2.d4 cxd4  3.c3, and the Moscow and Rossolimo: 1.e4 c5  2.Nf3 d6  3.Bb5+  and 1.e4 c5  2.Nf3 Nc6  3.Bb5  respectively.

It seems like you have played against his Sicilian already. What has been played so far?

If you would like, we can play a few unrated games and talk about different variations. Or you could ask one of your friends to do this.

I hate to burst a bubble here but beating the his Sicilian will not beat him.  First, the Sicilian is not "beatable" or it wouldn't be the main opening played at the top levels of chess.  So give up on trying to defeat the Sicilian; learn it, love it or hate it, avoid it if you want to (best way is 1. d4 ...) but pick a reasonable goal.

Second, no player wins because of his opening.  His opponents may lose in the opening by their mistakes, (so you want to avoid mistakes vs an opponents pet opening), but he wins by superior ability due to greater: talent, experiance, training, whatever.  Too many players gain a theoretical advantage out of an opening due to superior memorization/familiarity and then are unable to convert the advantage to a point.

Bottom line: Improve your chess and you will win.   Its not the opening, its the game.

have you tried 1. e4 1. c5 2.Rf3!! 2. a6 3. Qxf8#?

Can you post a game of yours against him - maybe we can give better advice this way

My main weapon against the Sicilian Najdorf goes as follows: 

My main weapon against the Sicilian Dragon is the Yugoslav Attack, which is an easy to learn and execute kind of attack. The lines are well-known in this attack, so I refer you to Wikipedia or some other encyclopedia for for information. (A little to complicated for here.)

Against the Scheveningen Variation of the Sicilian, I usually play as follows:

After this variation above (Known as the Keres Attack.) Black can either allow the knight to be chased away as follows:

Or he can weaken his kingside and keep the knight in place:

I assumed from your post that you were White in all these games. Otherwise, you would be raving about how good the Sicilian is; since Black is the one that benefits from it! These variations are based on the usual 2...d6 after 2.Nf3, but the Shveshnikov and Kalashnikov Variations are two of the best when facing 2...Nc6 instead. I encourage you to look up more of these lines, since the Sicilian is very popular and you will be seeing more of it as you progress. (Although my personal preference is given to Classical Openings and gambits.)

I usually forget this.. but the best I know you can beat him is to learn to see the forest before you start felling or planting trees.

 Decide this first:

Do you want to defeat him?  or,

Do you want to learn the Sicilian Defense?

You have much better odds at defeating him first and then to know the Sicilian Defense.   It is usually extra difficult to defeat him "at his own game".  Try 1. d4

It may take years to develop the knowledge that you need to use.  Even if you get one in and win, it won't be because of opening preparation but an error further down the road.

If you do insist on 1.e4, try to get out of common theory as soon as your position (and taste) safely allows it.

hehe  

1.d4!

I recommend transposing the game into the Dragon Variation (Note: Make sure you study the Dragon Variation, as it is one of the sharpest openings in chess).  Furthermore; make sure you memorize most if not all movement of the Dragon, here is how the tactics of the Yougoslav Attack work out.

This is my favourtie variation of the Sicillian Defence both for white and black, I hope this helped.

If the sicilian is your weakness then go with d4, if he is your weakness then learn how to strengthen your game.

d4 is a sound opening and you can keep it from transposing into a sicilian variation.  if you are familiar with what you are doing and your opponent isnt, you have an advantage.  if you know you will do better with d4, then go with it.  Otherwise, study alot of Sicilian theory and look for whites lines that give you advantage.

....maayo mga amigo...

Personally, I think if you're playing someone at about equal level, the sicilian is harder to play as black in an open sicilian. It's sharp and can be theoretical depending on the level you play, but white is the one who is more likely to get strong piece attacks while black's counterplay is more long term and pressures white more later. It's a dangerous opening for weaker players, because they might just play it because it's most popular and don't understand how to make use of the c file and keep in mind white's attacking chances. And even if he does, it's still a sharp fight. It's played at the very top level, so it's completely sound and gives you chances for the attack. You need to know some theory, not too much, but enough but I have a good win record against the sicilian because my opponent tends to not sense the immediate danger. The Grand Prix attack has less chances of succeeding because there aren't tactical threats everywhere.

This is only my suggestion to you, learn the basic concept of an opening and learning the tactics in chess e.g. fork, pin, etc.

I'm sure this will be useful for every opening. It will help to improve your defense against the opening of the opponent.

But like what the others says you don't have to learn how to beat a certain opening. This is because every opening comes up with different variation based the person style.

Once you learn the basic concept of the opening and the tactic its up to you. You'll just how to beat it once you are in the game.