sicilian defense as a main weapon

SICILIAN DEFENSE IS DUMB, TRY JAJAJAJAJAJA INSTEAD!

LOL HEY FIREBRANDX, WANT USELESS TROPHIES SPAMMED 2 U?

What Sicilian games look like when a Grandmaster is playing White

What Sicilian games look like when the average Chess.com member is playing White

lolurspammed wrote:

Same Reb, but instead of stopping I started playing every opening on earth with black and white

Its seems to be overwhelming at first for average learner, is that works?

See post #15 

Dolphin27 wrote:

......

You definitely right in my case, but againts non theorical opponent doesnt need such complexities as a master does i think.

Since the goal is to win and especially be the better player, so automatically will increase complexity the way it supposed to be in the higher level.

It may be true if you play against strong players but if you play against the same pathetic players then sicilian is good.

FM Valeri Lilov in his "openings for beginners" series had a video on the Sicilian.

The Sicilian is playable for any level.

Reb makes a sweeping generalization that "sub-2000 players are weakest in endgames and tactical complications" that I don't think is necessary true.

Trying to complicate the game is a well known way to fight against stronger opponents. The idea is that tactically players are closest together so if you're playing someone 100 points higher than you they're likely the same as you in their tactics skill what makes them better is an understanding of strategy.

Hence the Sicilian is good against stronger opponents because they'll go into an Open Sicilian and you can create some kind of complicated mess, and it's also good against weaker players because they'll just play 2.Bc4.

He's trying to be insulting but his melodramatic comments are just funny to me.

That you should complicate games against stronger opponents is not an assumption on my part, this is common chess knowledge. By trying to make a chaotic mess of a position you're playing on a battlefield you have the best chances to win, as opposed to letting them create a solid position where they have a strategic edge and they can just grind you down with you having no chance.

"Sir National Master Reb" has failed to address that the Open Sicilian played below master level is uncommon. Much more common are things like 2.Bc4. By telling beginners not to use the Sicilian he's saying that 2.Bc4 is going to give them too much to handle. When the Open Sicilian actually is played below master level White often doesn't know what they're doing from the very beginning (omiting f3 when playing the Yugoslav Attack and allowing Ng4 as just one example, is very common). So if you're a beginner who wants to play the Sicilian go for it, you have nothing to fear, and you don't even need to know much theory.

Here's another advantage of playing the Sicilian as a beginner, you'll be able to learn it over the long term. I've been playing the Dragon since my very first chess games, I have never actually sat down and studied a theory book about the Dragon. I've instead learned my theory by small pieces at a time over the years. Now compare to someone who never plays the Sicilian as a beginner and then suddenly decides to switch to playing it later. Wow that's going to be a lot of catching up to do.

It's like in wrestling, there are certain things a lifelong wrestler is just going to know in their muscle memory and a non-wrestler can't just suddenly say "I'm going to become a wrestler now". So if you want to play the Sicilian you should start early and not wait and suddenlt one day go "I'm going to start using the Sicilian now let me cram for a few months and I'll be ready to go" There's certain things us Sicilian players who've been playing it from the beginning are just going to know, we're going to have familiarity with the positions that no amount of book study can replicate. It's the same with any opening I guess. If you want to play it then play it and stick with it, and don't drop it after you lose a few games like Reb did as a 1200 player.

I have faced 2.Bc4 exactly once in all my sicilian games. More common is 2.Nf3 and 2.c3.

I lost more than a few games with it , but worse was that I always found myself under heavy attack and defending . I did NOT say to NOT play it I said I thought weaker players would do better playing something else and I stand by that . Lower rated players are NOT good at defending and endgames and if you play the sicilian you will need to be able to defend and play endings well as the endings tend to favor black and the middlegames often favor white . I dont think we are adressing the same level players when we say weaker players , in general I am referring to players from 1300 to 2000 and when I was under 1600 plenty of players in that range did play open sicilians , maybe today they don't , I dont know since I rarely play that level players anymore . Maybe a lot of children below 1200 play 2 Bc4 against sicilians but when I was below 2000 myself very few children played tournament chess at all . 

Wow someone's a liar. A quick perusal of your live standard games shows you've faced it  twice in the last 10 days alone.

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1073236613

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1065234959

And considering you only played four Sicilian games over the past 10 days this means you encountered 2.Bc4 half the time you played the Sicilian. Thanks for proving my point.

They're taking the attitude that the Sicilian is just too sophisticated for the average player. "It's a sophisticated opening, they wouldn't understand it", well if we are to tell people they shouldn't play the Sicilian with that logic why not just tell them chess itself is too sophisticated and they shouldn't play chess.

I may not be able to play the Sicilian like Garry Kasparov but I can play  it just as well as I can play any other opening. The idea that people shouldn't play the Sicilian because they're not rated high enough is bunk.

"Oh but they can't defend the difficult positions" hm well just maybe by playing the Sicilian people can learn to get better at defense and counter-attack.

Look ... if you are not good in endings and/or not good at defending difficult positions where you come under heavy , often sacrificial , attacks then the sicilian isnt your best bet . If you are good at those things by all means play it . In my experience the majority of players under 2000 are NOT good in those areas , I wasnt either .  I did much better with the french than I was doing with sicilians and only came back to the sicilian after I reached 2000 because I was much improved in defense and endings . 

Who were you playing against when you were 1200 that was doing scary sacrificial attacks against the Sicilian?

The Sicilian as I've played it since being a complete beginner wasn't scary. It was a bunch of anti-Sicilians led by 2.Bc4, and the rare times White did play an Open Sicilian they had no clue what they're doing and played things like "The Yugoslav Attack without f3" or "the early f4 against the Taimanov that allows Nxd4 Qxd4 Bc5" half the time.

These are the kind of heavy attacks you're trying to warn beginners away from.

I started off trying to play the najdorf , due to Fischer's influence , in the 70s . I was always having to defend and people played what was popular at the time .  I wasnt good in endings so even when I survived the opening and middlegame , against higher rated players , I would lose the endings . I was 1200-1300 when I first tried the sicilian and 1400s and 1500s were beating me consistently . I changed openings and gave up the sicilia and started doing much better with black than I was doing in the sicilian . During that time I played Alekhine's until I reached 1800 and had to start playing in the Open section of tournies then I switched to the french because Alekhines wasnt doing well against those above 1800 for me . French served me well to 2000 at which point I took up the sicilians again and using french and sicilians I made it to NM . 

Of course the 1500s were beating you up constantly, they were 200 points above you.

Maybe it wasn't switching to the Alekhine but just that you got better at chess.

Also there are many Sicilians, some are thought of as easier than the Najdorf, like the Taimanov which I've read is a good Sicilian for beginners and one where the Black pieces get some good activity in the opening. I find it's also easy in the Taimanov to attack White on the kingside if he castles there. I saw Judit Polgar had played several of her Taimanov games like this. She delays castling herself and plays h5 and Ng4. I used the same idea in some of my games with good success, and it seems like it would be an attractive and successful plan for beginners too.

This "lower rated players shouldn't play the sicilian" thing is not fully correct. It is true that beginners shouldn't play the sicilian at all. And below 2000 sharp and theoretical variations like the najdorf are also not a good idea. You just give too much activity for white and have to defend through the middlegame for some late middlegame/endgame advantages, and players below 2000 may not be able to use them even if they survive.

But, playing the sicilian kan/taimanov is totally safe and good even for 1600-1700 rated players. (But of course everyone should play e4-e5 first before switching to other openings, or start to play it if they never played it before) White cannot effectively castle queenside, and those are the really dangerous lines for the sicilian as a whole.

I've talked to and/or corresponded with several Experts, Masters, and National Masters (including experienced coaches) regarding this exact issue. I don't have a lot of data points, but some say an intermediate (whatever that is) should practice the Open Sicilian as White and/or Black. They didn't it should be ALL you use.

Others say don't touch it until 2000 or so. There is never going to be accord on this issue among experts. Isn't possible that playing the Open Sicilian might help you improve in the long run (I'm not talking about beginners), although you might get creamed and may want to not use it in a USCF (or other nation's) tourney?

What's kind of strange to me is that NM Reb said he switched from the Sicilian to the Alekhine because he was getting attacked..

Isn't the Alekhine an opening that invites attack also? I was perusing the book Alekhine Alert! by Timothy Taylor and the way he made it sound Black needed to know exactly what they were doing to even stay on the board against dangerous lines like the Modern Variation.