In his beginner's tier list video, Nakamura and Rozman recommends the Alapin Sicilian for beginners as a "Legit" opening. For GM-level play, they do rank the Alapin a little lower.
Overall, it seems to be a valid opening weapon to have in your repertoire.
Yeah, it works only against weak players like Ivanchuk, Xiong, Gelfand, Vitiugov, Dubov, Praggnandhaa, Van Wely... I wouldn't play it against CrackPipeLion, though.
You cannot break the Sicilian. You can only try to get a game. At a lower level, any line will do this, including 2. c3. At a higher level, Black's position is a bit too easy to play for most people's liking. That doesn't stop some people from trying, and even occasionally succeeding. Some of my own best upsets came from playing 2. c3
I have played the Alapin Sicilian in blitz, rapid, and in rated OTB tournaments for several years. I am quite happy with it, but if you are looking for a variation to "break" the Sicilian, you will search in vain! As an Alapin specialist you will enjoy the slight advantage of being more familiar with the kind of positions that frequently come up, but that's all. After playing the Alapin in hundreds of games, I find that I score very well against players rated lower than me, pretty a well against players at the same rating level, and not so well against players rated considerably higher than me. Just what you'd expect
@IdiotDownUnder... Anybody has lose to Anything. I didn't say you cannot win with Alapin. I was referring to the word BREAK.
I went through several variations(Open, Closed, GP Attack, Smith-Morra, Moscow/Rossolimo) against the Sicilian before settling on the Alapin. If I keep playing 1.e4, it's probably what I'll stick with. My advice is to try enough approaches to find out what you're comfortable with then stay with it, working through the rough spots. My biggest failing as a chess player has been changing openings too much.
is the alapin good to break sicilian