Sicilian Defense, Dragon Variation vs French Defense, Winawer Variation

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ZephAxix

I'm having trouble deciding between two openers to play in response to White E4. One of them is, of course, the Sicilian Dragon, and the other is The French Defense, Winawer Variation. 

The French Defense, Winawer Variation is:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sicilian Dragon is:

lolurspammed

Too bad neither of them are forced and white can choose to say no.

ZephAxix

Alright, thank you, but my main question still remains unanswered, if I were to play this properly and get into one of these situations, which could eventually lead to a better positional advantage (dragon) or pressure advantage/tactics (French)?

ZephAxix

But when you say better, you mean broadly. I'm talking about those 2 points that I emphasised. Tactical and Material Advantage.

DrSpudnik

The ins and outs of these two specific lines are pretty well known or easy to find.

The big question is which opening you want to play when White avoids your preferred line? Do you want to spend a lot of time in the French Advance, Exchange or Tarrasch? Do you want to spend a lot of time in Sicilian playing against the Alapin, Wing Gambit, Smith-Morra, Closed and Grand Prix? Because, these alternatives are what you're going to spend a lot of time playing.

erik42085

Players at your level should be more worried about opening principles rather than specific openings. Your fellow beginner level opponents won't be playing many book moves and the ones that do will probably be doing so by accident. Black can only play either of these defenses if white allows it. Say you choose the French, what if white plays 3.Nd2? Or with the Sicilian, what if white chooses a closed Sicilian instead of an open Sicilian what then? Opening principles and tactics should be your main focus.

Crazychessplaya

Forget about the openings, Zephaxis. I took a look at your games, and they are crap. You hang pieces every other move. Try to concentrate on the moves you are making; try thinking "am I hanging a piece just now?." Just do lots of tractics trainer exercises, and forget about the openings till you get a score of at least 1600 on the Tactics Trainer. Learning about the openings doesn't make sense if you can't play a dozen moves without hanging a piece.

sirrichardburton

   Offhand i would prefer the dragon sicilian, with the french the possibility of a draw is much stronger. To me it is more fun to have 1 win and 1 loss than to have 2 draws. I also think that Crazychessplaya makes a good point that tactics will likely win or lose most your games.

ZephAxix
Crazychessplaya wrote:

Forget about the openings, Zephaxis. I took a look at your games, and they are crap. You hang pieces every other move. Try to concentrate on the moves you are making; try thinking "am I hanging a piece just now?." Just do lots of tractics trainer exercises, and forget about the openings till you get a score of at least 1600 on the Tactics Trainer. Learning about the openings doesn't make sense if you can't play a dozen moves without hanging a piece.

These are simply mistakes of mine. I don't actually often hang pieces, but sometimes I get carried away in pressuring check.