Generally the only Sicilians we see at the top level are Najdorfs, but I'm curious as to why we rarely see any dragons. I know the short answer to that is white has an advantage, but in which variation? From what I've seen in The Dragon Grandmaster Repertoire books (a biased source sure, but seemingly very accurate), black seems to be doing just fine.
Sicilian Dragon
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Big fan of opposite side castling and exciting chess, so 9. 0-0-0. Oh I'm too chicken to play like that myself, but big fan in other people's games. 
Sep 18, 2016
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#3
baddogno wrote:
Big fan of opposite side castling and exciting chess, so 9. 0-0-0. Oh I'm too chicken to play like that myself, but big fan in other people's games.
Don't you have to play Bc4 first, to stop an immediate d6-d5?
Sep 18, 2016
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#4
9.0-0-0 and 9.Bc4 are both played. Letting black get d5 in isn't the end of the world.
I personally prefer 12... Qa5 over 12... b5, with the idea of an eventual exchange sacrifice on c3.
Dragon isn't even rare.It is very common.
LalappanStrikes wrote:
Dragon isn't even rare.It is very common.
Common at the club level but nowadays I rarely see masters play it.
Many Gm's and IM's play it.
Eg: Gawain Jones, Simon Williams etc...
It's common in England.
LalappanStrikes wrote:
Many Gm's and IM's play it.
Eg: Gawain Jones, Simon Williams etc...
It's common in England.
I've never even heard of them. Perhaps I am looking too much at the highest levels and not enough at the games of the lower-ranked GMs and IMs.
Nakamura sometimes plays it, even Carlsen played many games (specially with chinese dragon), and Radjabov...
It is just fashion, there is no really theorical advantage for white (I mean no more than other sicilians) or at least there is no refutation
gchess33 wrote:
LalappanStrikes wrote:
Many Gm's and IM's play it.
Eg: Gawain Jones, Simon Williams etc...
It's common in England.
I've never even heard of them. Perhaps I am looking too much at the highest levels and not enough at the games of the lower-ranked GMs and IMs.
Gawain Jones is very famous and Simon Williams is the chess.com member, ginger_gm.
Sep 19, 2016
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#13
ANOK1 wrote:
not knc6 try kna6 the chinese dragon , its getting some good reviews
That's not the chinese dragon...
LalappanStrikes wrote:
Dragon isn't even rare.It is very common.
pfren wrote:
jengaias wrote:
White has no advantage in Dragon.It's only a matter of fashion.
Partly true. While Black is no worse in any Dragon line, the road to equality in several lines is extremely sloppy, and one minor mistake will cost the game.
Avoiding playing forced lines where everything is memorization cannot be labelled as "fashion", but rather as "common sense".
Obviously none of us are 2700+ super GMs, but if you are one and you're hoping to draw as black, isn't a forcing line where everything is memorization exactly what you want?
Sep 19, 2016
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#17
thankyou for the correct move of the chinese dragon , i thought it was a flank knight but am happy with the correction fixing and erik
Sep 19, 2016
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#19
Memorization and pattern recognition is neccesary in any opening, the ammount of it changes from opening to opening.
If u want informations about chinese dragon, just have a look here on chess.com, Bryan Smith's articles are always great :
https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-play-the-chinese-dragon