I rate this opening a strong 5/5 stars! When I started playing it I was rated 2450. I spent all day studying chess, but I could never find the right opening to achieve grandmaster elo. Now, thanks to this amazing line, I have finally reached 600 elo. Because of this I had an excuse to quit chess and invest my time into more productive activities. I now have a new car, a house, and a beautiful girlfriend. Thank you Mr. Hoffman for this fantastic opening! I recommend anyone reading this to also play this new line, and you too can lose all your rating like I did.
New Sveshnikov Line!
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White has a clear advantage after the simple 7.a3.
This compares very unfavourably to one of the main lines of the 4 Knights Sicilian: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d3 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Ndb5 Bb4 7.a3 Bxc3+ 8.Nxc3 d5 9.exd5 cxd5 with a decent game for Black. Here, you cannot play ...d5, so you have to suffer after 8...d6.
Well, you can probably play this at a blitz game, but there is nothing appealing about it.
Timoschenko mentions 6...Bb4 very briefly in his Chelyabinsk book, and says that 7.a3 is good for white, which hardly comes as a surprise.
Following nd6+, ke7 white can either initiate nf5+ or nxc7+, engine prefers nxc7, however I am yet to see nxc7 be played with a good result for black. Following nxc7, black captures with rook and has a fairly easy game given their strong development, and black will eventually self-castle.
If white goes nf5+, this is followed up with kf8 and here is where complications begin. The main line consists of:
The appeal of this line to me at least is the early aggression and the fact that after nd6+ (which I deem to be the most logical move white plays (without understanding this theory), black is simply equal if not better.
Here is a game I played in a classical event.
Would love people's feedback on this line as it's super interesting!