What is the Sicilian

You might have seen some people do this attack before. Scratch that. Many. Well, that is the Sicilian Defense. It is the most popular response to 1.e4. Some may even argue that it is the best scoring one against it as analytics show that 17% of the Grandmasters have played the Sicilian.

The General Idea

The whole general idea behind the Sicilian is for black to fight and defend for the center, which is one of the 3 pillars of winning a chess game, while not being symmetrical to the e4 pawn. That leads to black having the central power once he trades for white’s C pawn.

Variations for the Sicilian

There are many different variations. But today, we will just talk about the variation best to play as white and black

And the winner of best variation to play as black goes too.....

THE O’KELLY!

Usually, you get some good tactics going in the O'Kelly, but you are often having the initiative with black and white is rather defending. The statistics show how easy it is for black to win here, and how often white falls victim and loses. The Bb4 pinning move is pretty annoying for white, and I guess it is this very move that gives you the initiative and makes white wish he had not played 1. e4

And for the white, the winner is...

THE ALAPIN VARIATION

This variation in my opinion is a very good a strong one for white as it lets the pawn move to d4. And if it takes or not, it still has the control of the center, as if the black pawn takes, the other pawn can take right back.

The best games to ever play the Sicilian
Like I said before, 17% of grandmasters play the Sicilian. But here are the best games to have it.