Anti Sicilians or the Open Sicilian?

That might be true, but I just want to have some idea of what others play against it.

Whether they're challenging depends on the person who's playing them. There are many professionals who specialize in one of the anti-Sicilians. There's a very pretty FM on youtube named Alisa Melekhina who specializes in the Alapin and has videos on it. Roman Dzindzichashvili specilizes in the Grand Prix attack. IM Lawrence Trent is an expert in the Smith Morra, etc etc.

If you approach your particular anti-Sicilian thinking it's going to automatically give you an advantage just because it's called an "anti-Sicilian" then no, it won't be challenging for black. If you actually put the time and effort into learning it and practicing with one, only then will it live up to its namesake.

Scottrf

Here is what I play vs the line you mentioned

Consider joining our group and playing a few anti-sicilian games.

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/anti-sicilians

I make sure we usually have at least one of each of the main Anti-Sicilian lines running. ie. Rossolimo, Moscow, Alapin, Smith-Morra Gambit, Grand Prix.

My personal favorite is the Alapin.  OTB it is hard for a club player to break it down from behind the black peices and few "know" the mainline nor would want to play it.  And the 2. ..d5 lines are butter for white.

P-K4 what?

Here it is you're looking for!

URL:http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/bobby-fischer-trap# 

Not what I was looking for,but a Nice trap.

Open Sicilian! Accept the pawn exchange d4/c5 tension and yes as white we do get good development and set up a decent platform to attack from either with the scotch or Yugoslav attack or hybrid scotch/Italian attack.

When white allows black to play the closed Sicilian black has tremendous development on queen side and the game becomes white attacks king side black attacks queen side. Though key difference is with black their minor pieces are behind the pawn line attack and queen supporting along diagonals. For white it's a bit more jumbled with minor pieces in front of some pawns so white has to focus on deep tactics to rearrange positions and effective exchanges. Closed Sicilian games I always find to be tricky, I prefer open. :)

I'm rated around 2000 FIDE, and I always play the Sicilian as black vs 1.e4.

In my experience, white players below 2000 play antis (and I'm happy to see them as I have loads of experience and a great score against them) and white players above 2000 overwhelmingly play the Open. And then I'm in trouble.

Three things you might take away from that, not necessarily consistent with each other:

- Black players don't necessarily know the Open better than the Morra, c3, Grand Prix or Rossolimo

- If you're below 2000, play antis, after all other below 2000s do too, right?

- If you play antis, you stay below 2000, if you play the Open, you'll rise above it?

I'm going to switch to 1.e4 soon, and of course I'll pick the Open. It's simply the toughest line for black to face.

Thnx for the help Kikivors.Ill give the Open a try in a couple tourneys for sure.

I used to play Smith-Morra but I kept getting 2...Nf6 and passed it over for the open sicilian. To be honest the Smith-Morra was the only anti-sicilian I ever had fun with and since all the tactical positions were basically Scheveningens with the pieces in different positions anyway I gave the open a shot. This way I got to keep my pawn and do the same tactics lol. And then there's the Sveshnikov... Well you can't have everything I guess.

But I think you should play what you like. GMs like Sveshnikov did well with anti-lines like 2.c3.

The open is so much more fun to play than the antis that it would be my choice even if it were not the best line.  Seriously, even tha smith morra is static and dull when compared to most open sicilian lines. And if you play Be2 lines (which, it's true, do not lead to immediate compications, but the position usually explodes into life in the middlegame anyway) you don't really need to know a lot of theory. 

The simplest Anti-Sicilian that most of my op

ponents play is  3.Bb5

+1

Kopec system converts into Ruy Lopez positions.

Too boring

If you are a BB5 player against the Sicilian and Black plays 1. e4  c5

 2. Nf3  e6  you can transposed into the Kings Indian Attack with 3. d3  [requires you to know the Kings indian Attack lines for this variation]

I play the Open for white - rapid development.

Nice