Anand-Maric: Doing the Sicilian at Lugano 88

Alisa Maric and Mirjana Maric were born January 10, 1970 in New York. They moved to Belgrade and each became a Woman Grandmaster. In addition, Alisa became an International Master. Alisa has been a candidate for the Women’s World Championship. She has a Ph.D in Economics and is on the faculty of Megatrend University in Belgrade, Serbia. She has hosted the TV show Alisa in the Wonderland of Chess. Mirjana progressed in chess almost as quickly as her twin sister and also holds a degree, in mathematics. She has served as a trainer and second for Alisa (pictured).

The selected game shows Alisa Maric playing the Sicilian Defense against a young Viswanathan Anand, the current World Champion. Anand is actually one month older than the Maric sisters. The variation of the Sicilian in this game is the Taimanov and the line is classified as B46. The names used for variations can be confusing. I suggest that B40-B49 should be studied by players using this system, which is called the Kan Variation by some writers. I prefer to think of it as the Paulsen and the Kan as B41-43. The Taimanov is found in B44-49. That leaves alternatives in B40. It must be remembered that the seemingly separate ECO codes do not prevent transpositions, not only within B40-49, but beyond.

Included in the notes to the game are two other complete and annotated games.