Not a lot, really. It's played occasionally, even at high levels. The line starting 5. Bb5+ is considered critical. GM Igor Glek wrote a piece on it in SOS, and I think he argued black was okay with correct play.
Early e5 in the Sicilian
Sort:
Mudhouse wrote:
Not a lot, really. It's played occasionally, even at high levels. The line starting 5. Bb5+ is considered critical. GM Igor Glek wrote a piece on it in SOS, and I think he argued black was okay with correct play.
After BB5+ just play Bd7
After BB5+ just play Bd7
PokerGod33 wrote:
Mudhouse wrote:
Not a lot, really. It's played occasionally, even at high levels. The line starting 5. Bb5+ is considered critical. GM Igor Glek wrote a piece on it in SOS, and I think he argued black was okay with correct play.
After BB5+ just play Bd7
After BB5+ just play Bd7
You'll get no argument from me. Nonetheless, that's the line considered critical. My DB shows white scoring about 63% in that line, and it's the focus of the afforementioned Glek article.
If you're comfortable in the lines that follow from that, logically, you're probably in good shape to use the defense. Like I said, the verdict seems to be that it's fully playable.
Mudhouse wrote:
PokerGod33 wrote:
Mudhouse wrote:
Not a lot, really. It's played occasionally, even at high levels. The line starting 5. Bb5+ is considered critical. GM Igor Glek wrote a piece on it in SOS, and I think he argued black was okay with correct play.
After BB5+ just play Bd7
After BB5+ just play Bd7
You'll get no argument from me. Nonetheless, that's the line considered critical. My DB shows white scoring about 63% in that line, and it's the focus of the afforementioned Glek article.
If you're comfortable in the lines that follow from that, logically, you're probably in good shape to use the defense. Like I said, the verdict seems to be that it's fully playable.
May i know what database you using?
The problem after Bd7 is once the bishops come off, black has a really bad bishop, a hole at d5 and is behind on development.
Chessy4000 wrote:
The problem after Bd7 is once the bishops come off, black has a really bad bishop, a hole at d5 and is behind on development.
Checking with the big online servers, it looks like maybe Nbd7 is scoring a bit better for black...results in line with most mainline defenses.
To Pokergod: I mostly update my home DB from NIC, so it's hit-or-miss, and entirely dependent on how motivated I am to keep it up. But the big online DB's like 365chess and chesslab are showing the same kind of #'s.
Why not try something similar, but avoids the bishop check - Sicilian Sveshnikov:
GTchbe wrote:
Why not try something similar, but avoids the bishop check - Sicilian Sveshnikov:
As a player of open Sicilians, I beg you to ignore this advice. If more people played the Sveshnikov and the Kalashnikov, I'd give up e4 immediately! I don't think they're better than the Najdorf or anything, but I find them 10x the pain in the ass to play against as white. 
I feel like there's no coherent theme or order to those defenses...just pure concrete play. Drives me nuts.
I know it's not quite as simple as this, but I honestly feel like when you're playing those D's (or playing against them!), you either know your theory, or you get a beatdown.
Now what?
What wrong with an early e5 in the Sicilian Defense?