The Ultimate Guide to the Sicilian Nadjorf

The Sicillian Defense Najdorf is named after the Chess Great Miguel Najdorf 

(Miguel Najdorf)

This is one of the most played sicillian defense variations played in all types of levels .

Some of the players who used to play this opening
1) Bobby Fischer

3) Garry Kasparov

4) Maxime Vachier Lagrave

The idea of a6 is to prevent Bb5+ , Nb5 ideas ; trying to force black to give up tempo

White can play : -
1) Bg5 : The main line continuation of the Nadjorf
2) Be3 : Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation : English Attack
3) Be2 : Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation, Opocensky Variation
4) Bc4 : Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation, Lipnitsky Attack
5) h3  : Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation, Adams Attack
6) f4 : Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation, Amsterdam Variation
7) g3 : Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation, Zagreb Variation
8) Rg1 : Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation, Freak Attack

In this blog  , we will look at 2 major sub variations of this opening

Hope you guys like it  !

1) Main Bg5 Line

This is one the most popular lines in the opening , though Be3 has lately become more popular

Some games with this position

1) Sergey Karjakin vs Vassily Ivanchuk (2015) : 0.5-0.5
2) Teimour Radjabov vs Vassily Ivanchuk (2006) : 0.5-0.5

1.a) Sicillian Defence   , Nadjorf   , Poison Pawn Variation

The Sicillian Defence  , Najdorf , Poison Pawn Variation is a rather sharper line in the Najdorf ; here , white sacrifices One Pawn for activity . In this position , we can see that white is going all in for the black king at the cost of a pawn

This is the position of the poisoned pawn variation . Black usually takes the pawn which leads to the following position , namely called Poison Pawn Accepted 

Fabiano Caruana had prepared this line in 2020 Candidates , against MVL  ,  and beat him !

Here is the full game

This is the game between Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier Lagrave , where Caruana's second Rustam Kasimdzhanov , helped him prepare this opening

2) Sicillian Nadjorf , English Attack

Lately , the most popular Responses by white against the Najdorf

I hope you guys liked my post , if you did  ; please consider commenting about what would you

want me to do next 

Thanks 

Cheers <3