Sicilian Defense

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Mebeme wrote:

I dont see why white plays  d4 ?

 

 


Damn good question! 

Your chess instinct, intuition is dead on target.  It is true that White gets a nicely centralized knight on d4.  And a temporary lead in development.  But he does this at the cost of an essentially permanent advantage for Black.  That advantage is that now Black has 2 central pawns at (e7 and d6) vs. White's 1 central pawn at e4.

This 2 pawns vs. 1 pawn advantage for Black in the center is but one factor of many that are important in the position after 1.e4 c5  2.Nf3 d6  3.d4 cxd4  4.Nxd4