The Alapin

Excellent!even better than the other games☺ really enjoyed the variations given as well as your annotations...thanx so much☺

Thanks for your kind words and enthousiasm. Let's hope more people will start playing this line.

It's time to show a game with one of the tricky lines I mentioned earlier. After that we can look at the most solid line from black and by then I think we've seen the archetype games of the regular Alapin. After all I cannot cover every line and just because a piece ends up on another square doesn't mean you should be completely lost about the main ideas. As I said before, black is in some danger with the queen on d5. You can look up all the BEST moves from black and say it is not that bad. That is a common mistake. If a position is dangerous people will make more mistakes over the board and then it won't matter very much what your opening book said. Here is one of those games I found absolutely baffling. It took half a mistake and black was a goner.

Now I'll finish with a solid line. If there are no discussions that will conclude the Alapin proper. What do we see?

There are differences, but white can often use bishops and queen to point to the king side no matter the line. The black queen can be a target and the early exchange line from above is not that innocent. Black can equalize, but there is plenty of room for error. 

In this game again mistakes were not that obvious. Given time, tactics will come. I did my best to add some suggestions for black but it was not that easy.

Haha each one of these games just got better...how does one concentrate in crazy positions like that???lol well done Sir☺

It's time to look at a hybrid or a delayed Alapin if you want. You may have had this on the board, masterfowler, otherwise i don't know what you mean. The plan is still to get a big centre, but white is not looking to advance the e-pawn. This is very tricky, since if black does nothing normally white gets his centre easily. With best play white may just end up wasting time though. So let's take a look at a solid line.

In the next game, white is smart about his move order and he does get his centre. After nurturing a little edge for a long time black finally crumbles.

lmao you crack me up with your comments like "horribly boring"

wow!solid annotations there Master Roelof:)

Thanks. When I have time this week I'll be looking at the development of the theory and then I hope we can all somewhat understand why certain moves are played. Again I'm not sure it has much practical value on our level, which is why I'll be sure to add the obvious moves you'd play over the board.

thats exactly what ive like about your annotations:) you give practical moves and variations...could you possibly do a part on the sveshnikov sicilian when you conclude the alapin?:)

I'll see when I wrap things up and when I have time. Expect it to be a long project though. I don't have a very good book on it and I have a bad track record playing it. I still remember how I sacrificed an exchange on a8, just as the book said. Then I lost because I was an exchange down. 

lmao hahahahaha lovely...its difficult to convert advantages when you sac the exchange cause your opponent will try to exchange pieces and then you are in trouble

Now, with this modern line white can get his centre for sure. The question is of course: So what? In some openings white starts with 3 pawns to 0 and black is still OK. If you're comfortable with closed and semi-closed positions black is of course fine here. You can expect the best effects against players who are really banking on the typical open Sicilians.

With this, I'm not really sure what else to tell you. If there are no questions I will close the chapter of the delayed Alapin and wish you good luck.

The 2nd game was quite cool actually ☺ was nice to see black winning...had no idea the alapin could produce such crazy positions ☺

Anything can happen really. You don't know what will happen really until both sides have moved more pawns.

I just thought before your posts on the alapin that the opening is slow and boring but it gets away from mainline theory of the open sicilian...these crazy positions are a revelation to me☺

Honestly, I knew the closed Sicilian is no walk in the park for black, but I was a bit surprised by all the complications myself. I need more time to actually go through the books I have.

lol its nice that you are also learning from these posts of yours:) its also very entertaining seeing these games:)if this is what you can do with openings which are regarded as shying away from main line theory i cant wait to see what you can do with some crazy openings