Regular Sicilian Dragon, Accelerated Dragon, or Hyperaccelerated Dragon?

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Avatar of planedoorfelloff12

I'm just wondering which is better for black in the long term, as they are all very similar

Avatar of BlunderMaster-123

Regular. You won't suffer against the Maroczy Bind.

Avatar of GMegasDoux

They are different based on what white plays, you can't just play a dragon set up without considering what is on the bord, it is not a system opening against 1.e4.

Avatar of Compadre_J

The Accelerated Dragon is probably the Best!

It is a tough nut to crack and has shown to hold up better vs. the other lines in my opinion!

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The Modern Innovation’s to the Sicilian Dragon have made it more Playable!

However, The YugoSlav Attack continues to be a Thorn in the Sicilian Dragon side!

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The Hyper Accelerated Dragon is very strong, but in most games the line will transpose back into an Accelerated Dragon.

Avatar of mikewier

I have played all three.

The regular Dragon is perhaps the easiest to play. Its themes are easily taught to club level players. When I was a beginner, I had a book that recommended the Dragon for newcomers. It is easy for White to attack the Dragon and so newcomers should expect to get smashed a few times. But Black’s counterplay is easy to understand and the counterattacks are fun to play.

The Accelerated and Hyperaccelerated Dragon have move order tricks to avoid the Yugoslav Attack. However, they allow the Maroczy Bind. This is a strong positional line at the advanced level. However, club level players may not understand how to play it.

in the last several months, I have watched Carlsen, Caruana, and Nakamura all play blitz games in which they used the Hyperaccelerated Dragon. So, they must think it is a reasonable choice, at least in a blitz game.

Avatar of blueemu

Early in my chess "career" I used to play the Dragon, but I switched to playing the Najdorf with a Scheveningen center because of the weakness of the d5 square in the regular Dragon.

Maybe one of the other two Dragon versions would have worked better for me. Very happy with the Najdorf, though.

Avatar of Despair

najdorf with E5 is goated

Avatar of CanadianChessPlayer2707

Goated. What does that mean?

Avatar of SwimmerBill

In my local club, I see a lot of people playing accelerated dragons and so far no one has played the normal dragon against me. There must be a youtuber pushing it. In the 1970's you couldnt swing a dead cat in a tourny without hitting a few dragon players and the accelerated dragon just wasnt played.

I agree with Mike tho that normal dragon should be easiest to learn as the patterns are pretty much set and not subtle. (I only play the dragon myself as transposition when white makes a odd move.)

Bill

Avatar of Despair
MaestroDelAjedrez2025 wrote:

Goated. What does that mean?

its good to play against white https://www.chess.com/game/live/140083815964

Avatar of Despair
planedoorfelloff12 wrote:

I'm just wondering which is better for black in the long term, as they are all very similar

I think engines prefer the latter since dragon you commit a pawn move its more flexible but I would run dragon accelerated as second dragon dorf and last is hyper accelerated there is a free chessable course that covers most yugoslav lines as black from mc german he is bad at explaining so you must do your own notes black only has to worry about yugoslav and maybe few moves of levenfish

Avatar of Despair

your opponents at your level will not know theory but if you look at what the chessable does in some areas like a h5 then you would have better game sense and fare better but I would pick a easier opening to play and just grind tactics until you are stronger

Avatar of Ajie72
Watched vids of the theory, yet i always end up fighting pawn storm in the king side.
Avatar of Sussyguy4890
Original is the best
Avatar of crazedrat1000

It's between the Accelerated and Hyperaccelerated. 
Hyperaccelerated has the advantage of avoiding the Rossolimo / whites other often played anti-sicilians, but there are 2 issues with it...

a) white can respond with c3 and you're playing a sub-optimal delayed alapin. This happens often. So while you might hope you avoid anti-sicilians by playing your hyperaccelerated, you actually get more alapins which are in my opinion the most boring anti-sicilian of all. It also throws off how you deal with the regular alapin. In contrast, the Accelerated move order allows black to play e5 against the alapin / delayed alapin which is one of the few lines against the alapin that isn't boring.

b) more importantly, white can go for an earlier d4 cxd4 Qxd4. This line can be sharp / can lead to an early endgame. It gives white a nice packaged way of dealing with the hyperaccelerated. Still it's sharp and there are some interesting things black can do.

While white does play the Rossolimo more often and will have more experience in those lines, black also has alot more viable responses to the Rossolimo, including some uncommon responses like 3... e5 or 3... Nf6, and white can't force the easy simplification / early endgame where he has initiative.

The fact hyperaccelerated is less common and sharp probably makes the Qxd4 line not a concern at below 2200 levels, but I think as you climb... you probably don't want the early easy simplification. Nakamura seems to feel the Accelerated is clearly better and other GMs like Danya have recommended it as well.

I think the Accelerated is the best line.