The Sicilian is a chess opening that starts after the moves 1.e4 c5!
Of course most of you probably already know this and likely know that the Sicilian is a more unbalanced approach to defending against 1.e4. Because of this aggressive nature, it is one of the most popular openings out there (who wants to play for a draw?) and has had many well-known adherents: Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, Judit Polgar, MVL, Radjabov, this list is getting too long...
Anyway where was I? Oh right! Well not everyone is Kasparov and the Sicilian is a hard beast to tame from either side so it can go south pretty fast even in correspondence games.
This first game features the Open variation of the Sicilian. I played as white and despite being a fairly strong player and having several days for each move, my opponent gets into trouble.
So far white has been dominate in terms of space and black has played somewhat passively. This lead to the above tactic. How does white capitalize? As I always say to my students, we need to ask ourselves the right questions: is the enemy king safe? Are any enemy pieces unprotected? Are any enemy pieces trapped where they are? Are there any weak squares we can use to invade black's camp? If we don't have any good moves with our pieces, then do we have any useful pawn breaks? After asking all these questions (and answering them) we should hopefully know what to do.
So what's the best move?
This is what's so dangerous about the Sicilian: black went about seemingly normal moves but now suddenly white has a very strong attack. So what did black play next? Well when it rains, it pours...
White to play:
There you have it, a quick win in the Sicilian. As you can see even a more positional approach leaves plenty of room for tactics.
Check back for part 2 in a few days.
Quick note: feel free to message me if you would like to inquire about coaching.
