
Is the Sicilian Dragon refuted?
Hello. My name is Spectator94 and the Sicilian Dragon is my favorite opening. I've read well over 20 books covering this opening and I claim to be an expert in it. I guess most of you have heard someone say at one point or another ''the Dragon is refuted, the Yugoslav Attack can be played on auto pilot and is too strong'' or something like that. In this blog post I will provide insight on how much of that statement is actually correct. I could say ''yes, the Dragon is a very theoretical opening but is not refuted'' like I have done a few times, but I think it's time to actually show variations to back up my claim, refuting the Dragon refutation in the process :)
First of all, if there is a refutation in the Dragon it has to appear somewhere after this sequence of moves:
Stuff like the Classical, Levenfish, Fianchetto and whatnot simply aren't good enough. So how will I actually go about presenting my variations? Well, I'll go over them in 3 steps. Step 1 will discuss 9 g4, Step 2 will discuss 9 0-0-0 and Step 3 will go over the most critical lines and the one the refutation is said to hide in, 9 Bc4.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Summary
Black options that have been refuted (as in, White obtains a clear advantage) are:
9 0-0-0 Nxd4?
9 0-0-0 Bd7?
9 g4 Nxd4?
9 Bc4 Bd7 10 0-0-0 Qa5?
9 Bc4 Bd7 10 0-0-0 Rc8 11 Bb3 Ne5 12 Kb1 all variations but the trendy exchange sacrifice, which I can imagine many people don't like for Black.
Black options that are (still) very much alive:
9 0-0-0 d5!
9 g4 Be6!
9 Bc4 Bd7 10 0-0-0 Rc8 11 Bb3 Nxd4! 12 Bxd4 b5
9 Bc4 Bd7 10 0-0-0 Rb8!?
9 Bc4 Bd7 10 h4 h5 11 0-0-0 Ne5 12 Bb3 Rc8
Conclusion
The Dragon is not refuted. I'd like to say that altough I have presented a lot of variations that could have been explained more, the main purpose was to give you guys an overview on the current statusses and allow you to do some research yourself with the outline I presented.