Spicing up the play !

If you've played chess for many years, you built a certain repertoire. of course online you can try other openings and sometimes you switch your opening favorite line, either for White or for Black.

But sometimes you feel you are not getting good positions or getting overall results with less than 50% in a certain opening. instead of considering a different repertoire, why not look at how GMs handle similar positions ?

Let me take a concrete example, the Maroczy bind e4,c4 against the Sicilian Kan ( sometimes Sicilian Paulsen or Taimanov). 1e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 or even 3 c4 where White creates a strong e4,c4 structure with typically f2-f3 to support e4.

Let's see a game where the main line is chosen by both players.

This is a typical set-up for White.

So here the game ended in a draw. But is there a way to spice things up for Black ?

Let's ask @EricHansen

Well, I do not take private lessons with the canadian GM and Chessbrah founder. but I can look at his games on chess.com or in databases.

How does he spice things up ?

In this position, Black to play

Eric Hansen went for 12..h5 !?

His idea, lets postpone castle, lets open the h-file and the rook on h8 is ideally placed. 

The black center e6,d6 is creating a natural wall, so it is not straightforward to attack the Black king in the center.

That's all you need to remember, no need to study hours of variations, just take a look at few games and ideas, and play it. That's exactly what I did. There are many move orders for White or Black so the hedgehog positions do no require learning each move like you would in a Sicilian Dragon main line.

First lets' see GM Eric Hansen game a few moves later, White to play

Eric Hansen is protecting the b6 pawn, and delays castle. White would like to open the c file and push b4 as well. Black will play g6-g5 at some point, very sharp battle ahead.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

ok, shall we look at this theme with my own games ? I have already tried it out in blitz games.

Game #1

Game #2

Game #3

Again, these games are played against fairly strong opponents and it is not easy for White to find the right path.

and this is how I used a canadian spice to mix things up in the Hedgehog sicilian for Black.

if you're interested in other games using the same time, Ilya Smirin has played this type of position with Black his entire career. Here's a convincing win