Choosing an Anti-sicilian.

Sqod: Lovely work! Thanks.

If I'm reading your work correctly, the Closed Sicilian unwinds to a pretty bad opening for White.

Is that right?

Like many, I was entranced by Spassky's bold victories in the 1968 candidates matches with the Closed Sicilian. His duels with Geller were legendary, at least in my mind.

I've only used the Closed Sicilian in blitz and it has worked pretty well. However, I am surprised how poorly its statistics are in the databases these days.

I can understand the Closed not being the sharpest tool in the Sicilian shed, but I would expect it to net to something 50-50ish, as opposed to a frequent advantage for Black.

You're welcome. As for the Closed Sicilian (2. Nc3)...

In all the graphs you should ignore the right-hand end of the graphs because that typically represents the presence of only two games that were almost identical out to a large number of moves, therefore those particular outcomes are unlikely to be significant, overall. In these newer graphs of mine I stopped plotting the points in each graph only when there were less than two games in the database, which is why there are more ply than in my first set of graphs (which previously always stopped before the 17th move), and why the right-hand side often shows no change for a long period of time: a different pair of guys battling it out with moves almost identical to the moves of a previous game.

What *is* important is the main part of the graph, before noise sets in at the end. In the Closed Sicilian I believe the significant attributes are: (1) the lines are tightly clustered, which suggests a sharp opening; (2) Black's results (the yellow dots) are fairly consistently slightly higher than White's results (the blue dots). This is the same thing I noticed in the Staunton-Cochrane, which also corroborates my own experience that Black always seems to have a slightly better position in that opening, especially in space, right up to the draw. For the Closed Sicilian the stats at move 2 are: (White wins, draws, Black wins)

which means already Black has a 37.1 - 35.8 = 1.3% advantage. This is funny because White had an advantage in the opening right up until he played 2. Nc3, whereupon he incurred a lasting disadvantage! Below are about the first 20 ply of values for White's wins minus Black's wins for that opening. As soon as White plays 2. Nc3, this difference turns negative, which means Black has the advantage.

Black has about a 10% advantage throughout that opening fairly consistently. That's also what I found in the Stanton-Cochrane, where White suddenly drops down to a whopping 15.7% disadvantage the moment he plays 2. c4...

For the Alapin, that difference column looks like...

White is consistently ahead about 5% until his 6th move (6. Be2), whereupon his advantage turns negative for a span, then suddenly recovers to positive again at his 14th move. That's the kind of Sicilian variation I like to play as White! That also suggests there might exist a better 6th move for White at that point, better than the most popular move, though I didn't check the database for that. Now I gotta figure out how to make the transition to a new opening (the Alapin): maybe start by using it only on weaker players until I get experience?

I read once that the "real" anti-Sicilian is Nf3 + d4 since that's the direct challenge to Black's setup.

You can't look at percentages without including performance ratings, although I expect it to generally be in line with the percentages for main lines.  The average White performance after e4 is +41.  It's +49 after d4, for the curious.

White performance, drawing percent, 2nd move:

1. +21, 36% = Nc3
2. +28, 45% = c3 
3. +42, 40% = Nf3
4. +63, 40% = f4

You're overlooking the main reason players are looking for alternatives to the open Sicilian: very heavy memorization and theory is required, which is beyond the ability of the average player with average spare time to master. That's why I wasn't considering adopting the Grand Prix Attack: I *believe* it gets into heavy tactics, which I regard as too risky. Per FOS, the Alapin isn't quite so tactical.

In general, for a player to find an opening that suits him best, he'd have to consider more attributes, something like:

degree of tactics involved

amount of memorization required

statistical outcome

I don't know how the various Sicilians rate on all of these for White, but my guess would be...

(1) Open Sicilian

degree of tactics involved: very high

amount of memorization required: very high

statistical outcome: even

(2) Grand Prix Attack

degree of tactics involved: high

amount of memorization required: medium?

statistical outcome: good

(3) Alapin's Variation

degree of tactics involved: medium?

amount of memorization required: medium?

statistical outcome: good

(4) Staunton-Cochrane Variation

degree of tactics involved: low

amount of memorization required: low

statistical outcome: weak

(5) Closed Sicilian

degree of tactics involved: ?

amount of memorization required: ?

statistical outcome: weak

I never find this to be a convicing argument.  You're not preparing to play Kasparov in a Najdorf, you're going up against some other schlub that doesn't know all of the theory either.  And if memorization and theory are beyond the average player, it's beyond your average opponent.  So you're on equal ground!  Considering how popular avoiding mainline Sicilian seems to be for club players, it's not like he's going to sit down and have no idea what to do after 2. c3 or Nc3.  He's probably seeing it 30% of the time anyway.

Now if you have a style preference for closed maneuvring positions vs sharp open positions, that's something different altogether. Go through some of the lines and see which positions you like.   If you like the closed stuff, then sure play it.  But don't pick some line to avoid the theory knowledge that your opponent doesn't possess anyway.

Of course, being afraid of theory and opening e4 is kind of funny to me anyway.  Why aren't you playing 1. Nf3 or c4?  You're avoiding a ton of theory that way and it's rare enough that your opponents will be much less prepared for that than a closed Sicilian.

This seems to support the idea that the real anti-Sicilian is the open Sicilian.

I've never had the impression that anti-X necessarily meant the strongest variation against X but a variation intended to take the game out of main lines of X which one's opponent is presumably more familiar with than anti-X.

The memory onus in the open Sicilian is substantially greater for White.

Black can choose his pet weapon -- the Najdorf, Sveshnikov, Dragon, etc. -- and hone it sharper than White who has to learn something about all of those variations. And some of those lines are cut-your-fingers-off sharp.

The arguments for choosing an anti-Sicilian even at the class level are more compelling than SK5 presents.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with White wading into battle in an open Sicilian either.

Remember the Normal (bell-shaped) probability curve. I have a good memory for openings, which puts me at an advantage in openings that require medium memorization, so I'm not looking for low memorization, but I do have an upper limit to how much time I have to devote to chess. Therefore my memory and spare time attributes mean medium memorization would be the best range for me. The hypermodern style openings like 1. Nf3 and 1. c4 can transpose into a huge number of openings, which requires a huge amount of memorization, unless White ignores memorization for the most part and just goes for positional knowledge, which again is not in the range that is best for me. I used to play 1. Nf3, in fact, and I soon abandoned it for that reason.

From what I've read from multiple sources, even a medium strength player should be able to draw against a master if the medium strength player has mastered his own repertoire. That's my own personal goal: to be able to hold my own against a player of any strength, meaning to get at least a draw, and to win against sufficiently low-rated players. I also play against computers a lot, so I *am* being matched against higher-rated players, frequently. (Besides, you never know when some online cheater is using an engine, and I want to beat them even if they restort to an engine.)

Sqod: You're posting great stuff!

I have a good memory for openings, which puts me at an advantage in openings that require medium memorization, so I'm not looking for low memorization, but I do have an upper limit to how much time I have to devote to chess.

This is where I'm working from but I hadn't articulated it as you have.

Thanks, ipcress12. There have been a lot of threads on this topic of anti-Sicilians  before, but I'm glad to see this is one of the most serious and in-depth of those threads.

There have been online quizzes to see which chess opening fits a person's taste and style...

http://www.gotoquiz.com/which_chess_opening_fits_your_personality

http://www.chesspersonality.com/

...and it looks like the authors know something about chess, but it would be nice to see a more serious, non-quiz summary of attributes so that a player could see at a glance which category they fit for which openings, including variations of the Sicilian.

and then there is an anti Sicilian which I play which sometimes goes like this:

Every opening lacks a clear direction if you don't know it.

The Bb5 Sicilian is legit, even if many Sicilian players don't fear it. I tend to agree with Fiveofswords that there isn't a clear logical basis to me why the Open Sicilian must be considered "correct" as opposed to Alapin or Rossolimo variations. In any case, all three are probably draws with best play, although in many lines of the open, black gets better chances than white in the endgame (if he survives white's attacks) and so I think it is silly to say that the Anti-Sicilians, at least the two best ones (Alapin and Rossolimo/Moscow), are not as good as the Open. As for the Closed Sicilian or Grand Prix, I'm not so sure about those...

Part of the Closed Sicilian story seems to be that Black no longer plays the the Bg7 fianchetto with Nf6 against 6.f4 inviting the kingside pawn storms with which Spassky demolished Geller in 1968.

Instead Black often opts for Ne7 with the fianchetto allowing Black to play f5 when he sees the White g4, thus preventing White from f5.

"1.e4 c5 2c3 this is interesting..." that's a sentence haven't seen often. I think most of it's practical effectiveness is that it is such a passion killer.

Grand Prix

Maybe just g3 systems, easy to play and employable against almost all Sicilians. g3 against the Najdorf is raising in popularity at the moment.

Well even though I like Sqod posts. I simply do not believe in the degree of the evaluation.

I mean for example 2.Nf3  leads to over a dozen playable lines by white. I believe some can do better than others against certain set ups.