How to Defend Against Sicilian Defense??? Queen's Gambit???

So...

I'm trying to beat one of my friends and they almost exclusively play the Sicilian Defense as Black and Queen's Gambit as White.

Are there any traps, counterattacks or lines that you have found to work well against these openings? (If possible, can you illustrate them for me?)

e5 against d4, then learn a respectable defence afterwards.

Alapin against his Sicilian.

Honestly the sicilian is not too hard to deal with. Study some sicilian theory and you should be fine. For the queens gambit, I would recommend the slav. It's not trappy, but it's very solid and you should do decent.

You don't defend against the Sicilian Defence. You attack with the Open Sicilian.

Depends on which one they play.

Against Najdorf I play Bg5. Some opponents can collapse very quickly.

It has a lot of trappy and beautiful lines. If they play e5 against Bg5 then they are already dead lost. 10. g4 is main line. This side line with 10. Bd3 b5 11. Rhe1 Bb7 12. Nd5 is very tricky as well though.

Against the Dragon, Yugoslav Attack.

Against the Kan, play some Maroczy Bind.

If you want to play simple then play Alapin but you can risk getting a passive position.

A trappy line against the Queen's Gambit is the Cambridge Springs Defence.

You start with 4. ...Nbd7. This sets up the Elephant Trap. It looks like d5 isn't defended but...

black can take the knight appearing to give up the queen, but after 7. Bxd8 Bb4+ wins the queen back as 8. Qd2 is the only legal move to block the check.

Then you can take 8. ...Bxd2+ 9. Kxd2 Kxd8. Or you can play the savage move 8. ...Kxd8 and the queen is still pinned. Then if white plays 9. Qxb4 Nxb4 black is threatening Nc2+, forking the king and rook.

If black doesn't fall for this trap then you play c6. This opens up the queen's diagonal. After 5. e3 c6 6. Nf3 Qa5. This is the Cambridge Springs Defence. Black unpins with the queen and creates their own pin.

Vs Sicilian, I would try out the Alapin and the open Sicilian. They both want to put a pawn on d4. If you do play open Sicilian, I recommend playing English/Yugoslav attacks.

Vs Queens Gambit, Slav is definitely worth trying . Or you could opt for a Nimzo repertoire, paired with either QID, ragozin, nimzo, bogo or semi Tarrasch.

Thank you all so much! I will most definitely try these out!

Defending against a defense? Sun Tzu would nod approvingly.

LOL, respond would be a better term. I didn't realize my poor word choice at the time.

Albin Countergambit is semi-respectable like the Budapest Gambit. It has a trap but is still perfectly playable when they don't fall for the trap.

I would second @FrogboyWarpz's suggestion of the Nimzo-Indian as this is a very stable defence, which can be very flexible and dynamic. One of the most legendary openings.

Queen's Gambit lines:

All of these Queen's Gambit lines work fine, but the last one is a little tricky to defend.

Well, serious answer then: you respond to these the same way you respond to any other opening. You develop pieces and castle to safety.

You are probably waiting for some miracle line that refutes the opening, but that does not exist. The game won't be decided in the opening anyway, but in the middlegame or (rarely) in the endgame.

If your friend is booked up to the teeth with Sicilian theory, I'd try to avoid the main-main-main lines, and avoid anything that is sharp and tactical. For example, play 1. d4. Or play 1. e4, but after c5 respond with the Closed, the Alapin, the f4 Sicilian or something like that.

personally im more of a 1.Nf6 player but i would recommend the slav and a quick dxc4 (but you may need to learn what youre doing)

and agianst the sicilian i recommend the Bc4 lines (in the open sicilian)

ive seen people play like this as black and you just get an easy win

You can also go for rare Open Sicilian lines like the h3 Adams Attack or f4 Amsterdam, against the Najdorf.

I was looking at 6. f4 as a rare line against the Classical, as it works against the Najdorf and Dragon. It's actually playable and kind of interesting.

the levenfish variation in the dragon is filled with traps and is very dangerous, but if black knows what hes doing its dubious/esk because black gets equality

#12

... the advance slav?

thats not good, i think...

black just breaks with e5 and/or b6

honestly

the tarrash could be good if you want to attack white, it even has the favor of the computer

This is an interesting situation, because the Sicilian Defense and the Queen's Gambit are amazing openings. Against the Sicilian, if you want to cut down on study time, you can play the Closed Sicilian- but it's technically worse than the Open Sicilian. The Open Sicilian is feared throughout the chess community because of theory. That's an idiotic reason to fear an opening. You can stick to a setup- like the English Attack (just don't play it against the e6 Sicilian), where you usually castle long, play f3, g4, and break open the kingside. Or maybe you can man up and actually learn theory but I'm too lazy to do so, and I don't expect you to do so either.

Against the Queen's Gambit, decline the gambit, play the Slav/Semi-Slav, or play the Grunfeld/King's Indian. The declined is easy to play, but the Slav defenses are great alternatives and are definitely worth looking at. You can also just avoid the Queen's Gambit altogether and play the 1... Nf6 2... g6 setups- the King's Indian with 3... Bg7 and the Grunfeld with 3... d5.