How to play open Sicilian

     The Open Sicilian defense starts after 1.e4 c5 2.nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 nxd4. It often leads to sharp attacking games and has many variations. 

     The most common variation starts after nf6 and nc3. After this black can play two ways. The first one is after black plays pawn a6. This is called the nadjorf variation. It blocks off the b7 square to oth knights and the light squared bishop. Here Black wins 37%, draw 24%, and loss 39% of the time according to the chess.com masters database. I would honestly wait to do it untill about 2500, because white can play about 15 different ways and that is a lot of theory to study.

      The second is also a pawn but, this time to f6. This is the dragon silcilian. Dragon games get very sharp because after that they play be3 and after bf2, Qd2, castles, the fianchettoed bishop is exchanged. White usually long castles and attacks the kingside, while black attacks with its  two remaining queenside pawns.

        Black wins 50% of the time, and the remaining 50% is a draw according to the database. So the dragon sicilian is one of my favorite openings. I hope you enjoyed this blog. 

    For more information, watch the gothamchess video about the sicilian defense.