The Best Way to Beat the Sicilian!

Introduction

The Sicilian Defense is one of the most dreaded openings for 1. e4 players. It's aggressive, almost equalizes and the main lines are theoretical enough to require hours of opening study. 

That explains the rise of some Anti-Sicilians - sidelines to avoid the theory load of the Sicilian. From the Alapin to the Wing Gambit to the legendary Brick Variation, you can find an Anti-Sicilian for every style of play. 

However, that made me curious - which Anti-Sicilian is the best?

Well, I got to work, and figured it out!

Method

(Feel free to skip to the results if you're bored)

I took two data points from the Lichess database: Centipawn Loss and Winrate Gain. 

Centipawn Loss

Centipawn loss measures how objectively good or bad a variation is according to Stockfish. For example, a really good opening such as the Queen's Gambit would have a CPL of 1-10. However, a really bad opening such as the Jerome Gambit would have a CPL of 300-400 (lower is better).

Winrate Gain

Basically, Winrate Gain is how the chances of winning in a certain variation. Unlike Centipawn Loss, Winrate Gain measures how good a variation practically is.

Then What?

With those two data points, I made a scatterplot (I didn't know what other graph would work) and split it into four quadrants representing an opening's status - Bad, Good, Unsound and Risky.

For example, the Bowdler Attack is Bad, the Rossolimo is good, the Wing Gambit is Unsound, and the Smith-Morra is risky.

Results!

Okay, I get it, nobody cares. Here's what you clicked for: the result!

So, there we have it! The best ways to fight against the Sicilian Defense as White. Of course, I'm going to elaborate on that to show you a few of the best ones that I found. Here we go:

Avoid: The Bowdler Attack

I won't go too much into detail here, but 2. Bc4? is one of the worst Anti-Sicilians on this list. That's not to say it's horrible, but it doesn't present any kind of challenge towards Black and offers the second player free equality. Avoid the Bowdler like the plague.

Avoid: The Wing Gambit

This one might surprise you, but the Wing Gambit is weak and doesn't pose as much of a challenge as many gambiteers think. Any Sicilian player above around 1500 has learned what to do against the Wing Gambit to gain an advantage. Again, a surprising result, but statistics don't lie.

Play: The Mengarini

Recommended by GothamChess, the 2. a3 Sicilian (or the Mengarini as the nerds call it) is a much more viable try than it looks. The idea is to prepare 3. b4 on the next move, and it works very well as an unorthodox try.

Here's one of the most common traps in the 2. a3 Sicilian.

Further Reading: YouTube Video, Another YouTube Video, Very Good Book (Free)

Play: The Chameleon

The Chameleon is a very flexible way of playing the Closed Sicilian. It develops the knight and prepares an eventual d4 advance. In many ways, this system is better than the immediate 3. g3. White even has the option to transpose back to an Open Sicilian with d4.

Further Reading: Good YouTube Video, Decent YouTube Video, Interesting Book

Play: The Magnus Sicilian

Now, we're getting into the good stuff! 

In 2018, Magnus Carlsen unveiled a brand new Anti-Sicilian and used it with resounding success. The resulting variation has been popularly dubbed the Magnus Sicilian. The idea of the opening is to castle queenside and attack Black on the kingside. I'd say this is the best Anti-Sicilian in this blog post.

Further Reading: Brilliant Chess Lecture, GothamChess Video, Never Read the Book But It's Probably Good

Play: The Delayed Alapin

Finally, we have the trickiest and trappiest Anti-Sicilian ever! The Delayed Alapin has such a high winrate because it is absolutely filled with traps! Just have a look:

That doesn't even begin to cover the amount of traps in this opening! I think I'll hand you off to some great YouTube videos if you want to explore the rabbit hole of this amazing opening.

Further Reading: EPIC YouTube Video (Watch This), Another Amazing Video, But Unfortunately That's It! 

Random Notes

Here are just some random but interesting observations I made collecting the data:

• The Morphy Gambit scores much better than the Smith-Morra even though the latter is more popular. 
• The Bowdler Attack and the McDonnell Attack are the worst Anti-Sicilians out there - makes sense.
• Even openings that aren't gambits and aren't risky can have a high winrate gain, as demonstrated by the Grand Prix's 4%, the Closed Sicilian's 5%, the Rossolimo's 5% and the Moscow's 5%.
• The Wing Gambit for some reason scores much worse than the 2. a3 Sicilian though they have the same premise and often transpose.
• Of all the Anti-Sicilian gambits, the Ginsberg is easily the worst and the 2. a3 Sicilian is the best.

Conclusion

Well, that's about it. The full data is on this spreadsheet if you want to check out how your favorite Anti-Sicilian fares here. If you have any suggestions for next time (thinking of doing Anti-French next), and until then, thanks for reading the Daily Rat!