Open Sicilian for lower rated players?

Stronger players on this forum and elsewhere keep telling us weaker player to stay away from playing sicilian as black because it's complex and difficult to understand with our limited experience.

Yet at the same time, we are often recommended to play open sicilian as white instead of the other alternatives.

Is the white side of the open sicilian easier to understand and play? Does it require less knowledge of theory than the black side? What are the general plans and ideas for white in the main variations?

Yes, it does require less theory because white is very active and can develop smoothly while black in the early stages is often undeveloped and crampled. All the pitfalls are on the black side. In fact i have recenly switched to the open and i am very satisfyed with it; i tend to have exciting games (i am also scoring well) and i am now happy when my opponent plays 1...c5. The sicilian is a great defense, but handling it against the open is very difficult and requires a deep knowledge.

My "repertoire" (it's not like a have studyed many lines) is based on Bc4/O-O lines with an early f4-f5 break, but you can also choose something completely different such as the fashionable O-O-O lines if you like pawnstorm attacks. The open can be played in verious ways. 

I am a beginner, and don't play the Sicilian with the Black pieces. Instead, I meet 1.e4 with 1...e5, the Open Game. By definition, the Open Sicilian is one of the Semi-Open Games, as is the Caro-Kann, French and Pirc.

The idea behind 1...c5 is to prevent White from achieving the ideal pawn center with e4 and d4. White plays d2-d4 anyway, to open the c1-h6 diagonal for Bc1 at the cost of a second pawn in the center, d4. Black gets the semi-open c-file, and if a player knows what to do with that file, and how to execute a minority attack, a race, on the queenside, then the Sicilian would be a good choice. I'm not ready for all of that. It's hard!

I was taught that beginners with White should play d2-d4 whenever possible, so I play the Open Sicilian, and not the Closed Sicilian, for that reason alone. It does work, as I have tried the Grand Prix Attack (Closed Sicilian), which again, is quite a challenge!

Basically, I keep it simple with my very short opening repertoire and play d2-d4 as much as possible. Now, if someone understands the plans for both sides in the Open Sicilian, and has better tactical vision and board vision than me, then I say, go for it and play the Sicilian as Black, but that is just one guy's thoughts.

sicilian defenses are not good ,i suggest playing the vienna game(if u are white)because it picks the black rook

Hi. I have spent a lot of time to find out what we , the weaker players,should play and have found that:

as Black I recommend Pirc Defense for e5 

as Black I recommend Kings Indian Defense for d4

as White I recommend Kings Indian Attack opening

as in all these lines the begining is almost same.Comments are welcome!!

Thank you for all the replies. I will try out the open Sicilians for a while and see how I feel about that. I never liked Alapin Sicilian as I found the positions quite boring.

cviki22: Thank you for your suggestion, but I'm asking about the Sicilian here, not e4 e5 games. I'm very happy with playing Scotch or Ruy Lopez.

pfren: At my level, most players don't have deep theorethical knowledge so I don't think that is a reason to stay away from theory-heavy main lines. If I ever play much stronger opponents I'll probably play Alapin Sicilian instead because of this.

rohitsharda: thank you, but I'm not interested in changing my entire repertoire. I'm just considering the switch from Alapin Sicilian to Open Sicilian. Besides, most strong players say that we should learn the king pawn games (1 e4 e5) first and this is probably for very good reasons.