Overcoming 17 Years of Suffering...
What's the most annoying opening that your opponent can play against your repertoire, with either colour?
When I was a junior, it was definitely the Rossolimo (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5).
You see, I had some great books on the Sveshnikov Sicilian (my primary defence to 1.e4 in my youth). I had studied the typical positions closely, knew the theory and felt comfortable.
True, I had Rogozenko's Anti-Sicilians book to help me vs. the Rossolimo, but somehow, the positions weren't really clear to me when I got them in games.
And I kept having frustrating losses with Black against lower-rated juniors. There were so many times that I forgot what I was meant to do against 3.Bb5 g6 4.0-0 Bg7 5.c3 Nf6 6.Re1 0-0 7.d4 d5 8.e5 Ne4 9.Nbd2, and ended up in a difficult position facing this pawn on e5, killing my bishop on g7.
I did have pretty decent results playing the 3...Nf6 lines recommended by GMs Kolev and Nedev in 'The Easiest Sicilian' in online blitz. I didn't get to play it much in OTB games though. That's because I eventually stopped playing the 2...Nc6 Sicilian for other reasons (for instance, the 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.c3/c4 Sveshnikov lines were proving tough to play for a win against, at least for me).
Even as a professional player, when I returned to 2...Nc6 later, I found it hard to settle on a system against the Rossolimo, and feel comfortable in the arising positions.
Granted, in 2011 I studied 'Experts on the Anti-Sicilians' and used Tiger Hillarp Persson's excellent chapter to play 2...Nc6 3.Bb5 d6, which suited my style pretty well at the time. The problem was that, over time, White found ways to obtain a quite nice advantage against this, and so the search for the 'perfect' answer to 3.Bb5 continued.
From the White perspective, when I finally made the successful transition to 1.e4 (after playing mostly 1.d4 as a junior), the Rossolimo was one of my systems, mainly because I remembered my own struggles against it, and wanted my opponents to suffer like I did! And my results with it were pretty good, as White's plans always seemed easier to execute than Black's, even in the objectively equal lines. The possibility to choose between the direct c3/d4 approach and the more positional Bxc6 lines was also a big practical bonus that contributed to my success with the White pieces.
I experimented with 3...e6 as well, though I realized that the positions didn't totally make sense to me after losing to Lu Shanglei (and some other losses in blitz) in this line.
Finally, in 2018, when I was working on the Sveshnikov as my classical system, and the Accelerated Dragon as my 'blitz' repertoire to hide my real preparation, I figured, since I am fianchettoing the king's bishop vs. the Open Sicilian, why not do it vs. the Rossolimo as well?
Sure, it took me some time to heal from the youthful trauma of many losses in 3.Bb5 g6. However, this time I was going for a different approach, with 4.Bxc6 bxc6 (instead of 4...dxc6 that I mostly played as a junior). Furthermore, Gelfand had recently shown some nice ideas with Black to revitalize this approach, and play it more dynamically (rather than with the slow 5.0-0 Bg7 6.Re1 Nh6 7.h3 0-0 8.c3 f6 9.d4 cxd4 10.cxd4 d6 and ...Nf7, as I'd learned as a junior).
My initial results were not so bad, but then there were some games where my opponent played some unusual move, and I knew my position was meant to be objectively good, but somehow, I just got outplayed or made some really silly mistake. It was getting quite frustrating, to be honest.
Fortunately, I recently improved my approach to studying these openings.
Before, I was just analyzing everything with the computer. That was not so helpful in my actual games , as my opponents always deviated or I simply forgot what to do.
Instead, I quickly played through about 20 model games for Black in the 3...g6 Rossolimo for Black, focusing on the interpretations that fit with my intended repertoire.
The result was that, instead of losing to lower-rated players with Black, I was scoring quite well for a change! I was just more familiar and more comfortable with the arising positions.
Then I learned the price of 'following the crowd' without preparing the lines deeply enough, when I walked into a theoretical battle vs. GM Mikhail Antipov in a blitz game, just making up moves based on a very old memory of the ideas. Of course, I got totally crushed like a beginner - and today I realized why, as Antipov had already played the exact same line successfully in a recent over-the-board game!
So, instead of playing 3.Bb5 g6 4.Bxc6 bxc6 5.0-0 Bg7 6.Re1 Nh6, I went my own way in a recent blitz match against an anonymous French GM, and instead played 6...Nf6!?, a non-trendy move that had served me quite well in the past.
I've done a full analysis of my game below to conclude this long journey of dealing with the critical Rossolimo. I break down my thought process during the game and also explain why and how certain moves were better instead. Enjoy!
Do you feel more confident in dealing with Bb5 Sicilians now?
See you in the next post, where I will share more Grandmaster instruction and stories
