Sicilian variations ranked by aggressiveness.

try the sicilian bongcloud variation, its the most aggressive for sure. the main goal is to give both you and your opponent a brain damage

I think it should be measured in Litres

There are different ways of defining what it means for black to be aggressive. Some lines are sharp early and fight for the initiative... others are passive in the opening (like the najdorf) but lead to imbalanced middlegames with alot of tactics and volatility. And an opening can also be obscure and require concrete play, and so aggressively challenges the opponents knowledge of theory. So it's hard to say exactly but instead of ranking them I would just describe them

Dragon - you almost always get opposite side castling and both sides pawn storming, it's a very volatile opening but both sides have good attacking prospects. Alot of high rated players (Anish Giri) have played the dragon to avoid a draw.

Najdorf - It's passive in the sense that a6 doesn't fight for initiative in the opening, it passes that to white, but the middlegame positions tend to get very volatile and require alot of precision / theoretical knowledge.

Sveshnikov - black gains alot of initiative early on when he pushes the knights around, along with central control, black often has tactical opportunities but the lines are also very theoretical.

Lowenthall - similar story to the sveshnikov

Nimzowitsch - usually will lead to a backed up, hypermodern position for black. It's aggressive in the sense it challenges whites theoretical knowledge but the games tend to be more positional. The mainline is an exception where black is down a pawn but has good activity, however the mainline is not often seen below masters in my experience

Four Knights - It might be my favorite, it's up there... black focuses maximally on early development with both knights + e6 (opens up the bishop and queen), which often leads to an advantage in initiative resulting in equality if white doesn't respond precisely. The middlegames that follow from equality tend to be positional and equal, with black defending the kingside. Now, if white does respond precisely... it's a sharp line where whites king gets displaced, or it can transpose w/ the sveshnikov. It'd be my choice for aggression as it suites my style.

Classical - Another opening that focuses on development with the two early knights, but d6 makes this more theoretical than something like the four knights, however I find that often if white plays imprecisely there are strong theoretical refutations of his mistakes. Also the richter-rauzer, which is really the only serious challenge to the classical, leads to very imbalanced and tactical positions with whole-board complexity.

Hyper-accelerated dragon - It often leads to a maroczy bind which I don't think can be characterized as aggressive. I'm also not such a fan of the c3 continuation. Or the early d4, for that matter, where white has the initiative. Maybe the main selling point of these lines is they often lead to concrete continuations where black can look for a theoretical advantage. But I don't think this is aggressive for black

Accelerated dragon - White doesn't have as much initiative here, but it does lead to the same marcozy bind setup. Black does get good attacks along the diagonal, there are interesting tactics that can arise but I wouldn't say this is an aggressive sicilian, it tends to be positional.

Taimanov - Really not aggressive, there are some sharp lines where blacks queen can be harassed, or his king displaced, but it's more white on the offense in these lines, and otherwise it's usually a positional game where black has equalized or almost.

Kan - probably the least aggressive, black plays a6 but also typically delays Nc6.

Scheveningen - It does bring both knights out, but the e6/d6 setup isn't what I'd call aggressive since it blocks the bishops in, and usually it's black defending from lines like g4 or Be3. I know Kasparov loved this but I remain very skeptical.

So the Four Knights, Sveshnikov, Lowenthall, and Dragon would be my top 4 picks for "most aggressive". Classical would be up there too.

The Polugaevsky variation of the Najdorf Sicilian is one of the most complex lines in chess. Black invites the possibility of numerous sacrificial attacks, with faith in Black’s counterchances.

A lot of the Dragon variations look like a race to see which side can checkmate first.

The Caro-Kan is a little sandcastle. The Sissylian is a scarecrow in a cornfield. In either case, there is a lot of misplaced confidence.

Misplaced confidence indeed

5. ... a6 is the initial step in laying siege to White's only remaining center Pawn, on e4.

The siege will be pushed forward by ... b5 intending both ... b4 unhinging the e4-Pawn's defending Knight, and by ... Bb7.

So in that sense Black's 5. ... a6 move embodies a very aggressive idea - the destruction of White's Pawn center.

Aggression is a tough metric. There is tactical aggression and there is attacking aggression.

Tactical aggression means that there can be a huge amount of complications and tactics in a position, while no player is in the immediate risk of being mated.

Attacking aggression usually is also equal to tactical aggression, but it also means that one or both kings are in the risk of being mated.

In my opinion, the open sicilian guarantees a tactical game regardless of what black chooses. However, there are variations of almost all sicilians where it is clear that white is attacking black and NOT the other way around even though they are usually inferior to other variations. The classical variation against the dragon is one example - where white aims for f4 f5 and black best bet is to play on the queenside.

Therefore, the sicilian is best for players who are looking for tactical aggression and extreme complications, rather than players who are looking for an attacking game. When we have realized this, the classical "attacking sicilians" gets voted off in my opinion.

Because of this, I would like to nominate the three sicilians that I consider to contain the most tactical aggression from black without any particular order:

1. Sveshnikov - crazy games, unique structures. Best used for tactics and not attacks, thus fit the sicilian type of reliable aggression.

2. Classical sicilian - the Kozul variation fit the inbalanced tactical mess without relying on attacks. Also, the transpositional nature to the scheveningen, najdorf and dragon can make it easy for black to pick the transposition with the most aggressive nature depending on what white does.

3. Najdorf - not necessarily on this list for the same reasons as the others, but the structure is unique & tactical. However, since it being one of the most studied openings in all of chess combined with the tactical nature, there is some form of theoretical aggressiveness to the opening that no other sicilian has.