How to play the Sicilian Dragon

Hi all! The sicillian dragon is a variation in the sicillian defence. If you don’t know much about the sicillian defence, here is a brief explanation to you about it.

• The sicillian defence is black’s best response to 1.e4 as it doesn’t compromise black’s centre and helps black to be flexible.
• In the open sicillian[ e4, c5/ Nf3, d6/ d4, cxd4/ Nxd4] white will have a lead in development but black will have a strong centre and after the move Nf6 by black and Nc3 by white, black can go to 3 variations:

1.Najdorf variation[ most popular]

2.Dragon

3.Schevinagen

Today I’m going to tell how to counter the sicillian dragon as white.

So lets get started!

First of all, when black plays the sicillian dragon, the board looks like this:

From here you should play Be3 and continue. This position is known as the Yugoslava attack. The main point of white here is to play Qd2 and then long castle. After he completes all this he will play Bh6 and exchange black’s fianchettoed bishop. Once he does this, he can expand hiss kingside with h3, g4, g5, etc and break open the g and h file and checkmate the black king. So black should be careful. At the Same time, black should play a6, b5 and b4 and open up the queenside. White and black continue to play normal development moves: Be3,Bg7/Qd2, 0-0/0-0-0, Nc6/ Nb3, Bd7/ Be3, a6/ Bh6.

From here most likely black will take the bishop. Then you take with your queen, push the kingside pawns, and then open lines for your queen and rook. That’s all guys. Meet you in the next blog!

Regards,

@chessmanager123