should i play sicilian?

hi. i am playing chess regularly for last 3 years and on chess.com for last 3 months and my max. rating has been 1350, so should i try to learn and play the sicilian defence?

Agreed. My rating is suspect, and I don't know what's up with the Sicilian.

no, i mean yes. 

1.e4

move    games     white wins / draw / black wins
1...c5    272,196   37.5%           30.4%   32.1% 
 

270,000 people can't be wrong.

why according to you i should not play sicilian?

why according to you i should not play sicilian?

I would try the hyperaccelerated dragon. e4, c5, Nf3, g6, etc. get a book called Chess Openings for Black by Lev Alburt. It tells one step by step how to begin playing the Sicilian dragon, and how to avoid the Yugoslav Attack. Cheers, and good luck.

Now that's a little different. I did not say you shouldn't play it. I just meant you don't have to play it. But like LaskerFan said, you will be playing against it for sure.

I think it's the best. I have been playing sicilian 100% of the times against e4 for the last... year? And I'm fairly a noob. I wanna learn it cuz I think it's the best defense.

RainbowRising plays the Caro-Kann... why would he need to know the Sicilian?

I play the Sicilian, so know next to nothing about the Spanish Game. I play Indian defences, so know very little about the Queen's Gambit.

Most players choose their ground.

why are you even asking what openings, of all the things, to play? play whatever moves in the opening you want (the ones you are most comfortable with).

I play the Queen's Indian against d4, and the Sicilian Dragon against e4. And like some people mentioned, you have to be ready to play against it, in which I play the Grand Prix attack. But it is hard to learn. I highly recommend the time to learn it, and you might wanna give it a look.

thanks for the varied thoughts on sicilian defence. i just wanted to know that for people like me- with chess.com rating between 1300 to 1400- can sicilian be learnt and played inspite of its massive theory?

Of course you can play the Sicilian. It's just a question of whether it's most beneficial for you to play it rather than ...e5, or whether you can play it well.  But at the end of the day, unless you're making money from it, chess is just about personal enjoyment, so do what you like.

I think learning the sicilian will make you a better player, even if you eventually return to playing 1...e5, if for nothing else because it will teach you how to best play against it.

Do you have the time to keep up with the ever growing/changing body of theory that accompanies one of the most popular and complex of all openings ?

Do you like, and are you good at, defending against very strong sacrificial attacks in the first 30 moves of a game ?

If you do indeed survive such attacks are you confident in your ability to carry out an accurate counter-attack or are you such a strong endgame player that you can now reap the rewards of a better ending ?

If you can honestly answer YES to ALL of the above then by all means..... play the sicilian !  Otherwise.... you are better off to pick something else....

I play the sicilian regularly and like it for three reasons:

First, there are a lot of variations in whites kings pawn opening and I don't know them all.  The way I see it, playing e4 e5 is simply playing into whites preferred plan.  By using the sicilian I move white towards lines I am familiar with.

Second, I believe (but have never confirmed) that the Sicilian and Caro-Kann win more games for black than other openings.   This means my odds of winning are better with the Sicilian than other openings.

Finally, it seems to me that for the Sicilian to work, you have to play aggressively which fits my style a little better.

If you want to learn the Sicilian I would recommend finding "How to Think Ahead in Chess" by Reinfield.  It is an older (read dated) book but does a really good job of laying out the basics of the Sicilian (Dragon).

As Reb says, the Sicilian is a bottomless pit of theory. I used to play it but switched to the Pirc. The Pirc isn't for everyone but it gives you chances to make it into a fun and playable middle game and entails a tractable amount of learning.

thaks. are you suggesting french defence and caro-kann?

 Well, I play the french and sicilian(s) myself but didnt add the sicilian until I broke 2000 so for some years played only french against 1 e4. You should try french, caro kann and maybe even 1... e5 and see which you like/understand better is my suggestion. If you play 1... e5 there will probably be more work involved though so that narrows it down to french and caro kann .....