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Hitting 300km/h With The Grand Prix Attack

Hitting 300km/h With The Grand Prix Attack

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Hypnoticdemon
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The Grand Prix attack is an aggressive opening out of the Sicilian defense for white. White wants to develop aggressively, swing the queen over to the g and h files, bust open black's king side, and checkmate them. 

The Grand Prix attack starts with the moves 1. e4 c5, 2. Nc3 Nc6, 3. f4 g6, 4. Nf3 Bg7. This is can be considered as the starting position of the Grand Prix attack. Here white has two main moves to choose from, 5. Bb5 or 5. Bc4. Today we'll cover the main-lines for both moves.

The basic idea of 5. Bb5 is to exchange the knight for the bishop. White is alright doing this because they plan on playing d3, forming a pawn chain on light squares.

You may have noticed that white played 8. e5 to shut down black's bishop instead of taking on d5. Taking on d5 isn't a mistake, it just leads to an endgame that doesn't have much to offer white.
As you can see, white has a crippled 3 to 2 majority on the queen side and less pawns on the king side. White's going to have to use their development advantage to win this endgame. Black has the bishop pair, which is useful because there are two pawn islands. Black also has more pawns on the king side. Given this information, it safe to say playing 8. e5 leads to a better position for white than 8. exd5.
 
The other main-line is 5. Bc4. This line is aggressive and leads to king side attacks. White can even sacrifice a pawn to cripple black's king side.
You may be wondering why you should even sacrifice the pawn on f5 if black can get a better position. By sacrificing the f pawn, you open up your dark-squared bishop, and depending on which pawn black takes with you can get a semi-open g file or a monster light-squared bishop. However, if you feel black will know not to take the pawn there are other lines.
This is a complex position where black has compensation for white's space advantage on the king side. White can play for Qg3 or Qh4 in the future. White wants to play for their king side attack and can occasionally push their king side pawns to open up black's king. This is risky, as white is castled on the king side. Black's play may be more focused around the center and queen side as black already played c5 and d5. Black can even consider grabbing more space with an eventual b5.
 
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