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Sick of Sicilian main lines try this

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Da-Novelty

Sicilian defence is a complicated opening. As a young player, I love to play attacking chess full of wild complications. Now things are different. I started looking for new approach. The anti sicilian is the answer. I am talking about the c3 sicilian.

Da-Novelty
Da-Novelty

In the first Nf3 and d4 often transpose to one another though I prefer with Nf3.

Da-Novelty

I agree that alapin could be very complicated. One reason to chose alapin rather than the open sicilian is that there is too much theory on the main lines open sicilian. In the second, the reason 

Da-Novelty

Nf3 and then dc gives me more option in my opinion.

TwoMove

After 1.e4 c5 2c3 d5 3exd5 Qxd5 4d4 Nf6 5d4xc5 black can equalise really easily with 5...Qxc5. The point is without nc6, black can easily play a later Qc7. Then can play a rubinstein french structure with e6, or probably even more comfortably a later g6, bg7. Personally play rubinstein french, and c5 lines against Tarrasch french, so not too concerned with facing a queen-side pawn majority.

It's probably why 5Nf3 is more theoretical. There prefer 5...e6 to 5...Bg4 but only because it fits better with rest of my rep. 

 
Jenot

I played both 2... d5 and 2... Nf6 against the Alapin, i cannot say which one is better (probably they are both equally playable). The last 2 times i played 2... Nf6 (one win against a weaker player, one loss against a stronger player, two "normal" results).

One thing was annoying: in the game against the weaker player, she managed not only to maintain equality with her white pieces, but she managed to obtain a better position by applying simple chess.

The fact that i won was certainly not due the opening, she made some mistakes when the game became tactical. Against a weaker player, i would prefer one of the Sicilian main lines.

Against a stronger player, it may be useful to use the c3-Sicilian (i noticed this myself in a drawn match against a GM) (with the white pieces). By applying sound, normal moves, it is not easy to be outplayed by Black.

TheOldReb

Another very playable choice for black is 2...d6 , usually followed by 3 d4  Nf6 ....   this line has served me well over the years and it seems my opponents arent as well prepared as against the main 2 choices . 

Da-Novelty
Reb wrote:

Another very playable choice for black is 2...d6 , usually followed by 3 d4  Nf6 ....   this line has served me well over the years and it seems my opponents arent as well prepared as against the main 2 choices . 

The problem with 2...d6 is that white gets free center by playing 3. d4 with normal development. For eg. 2...d6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Bd3 & Nf3 & 0-0. Black might need to play really well to equalise.

Da-Novelty
Jenot wrote:

I played both 2... d5 and 2... Nf6 against the Alapin, i cannot say which one is better (probably they are both equally playable). The last 2 times i played 2... Nf6 (one win against a weaker player, one loss against a stronger player, two "normal" results).

One thing was annoying: in the game against the weaker player, she managed not only to maintain equality with her white pieces, but she managed to obtain a better position by applying simple chess.

The fact that i won was certainly not due the opening, she made some mistakes when the game became tactical. Against a weaker player, i would prefer one of the Sicilian main lines.

Against a stronger player, it may be useful to use the c3-Sicilian (i noticed this myself in a drawn match against a GM) (with the white pieces). By applying sound, normal moves, it is not easy to be outplayed by Black.

With the d5 variation, white optains better prospects in the middlegame. Those wild tactical positions arising from some variations do indeed slightly favors white. If black is not careful, he could lose very quickly in some lines.

From my experience d5 lines is easy to play compared to Nf6 line.

Da-Novelty
TwoMove wrote:

After 1.e4 c5 2c3 d5 3exd5 Qxd5 4d4 Nf6 5d4xc5 black can equalise really easily with 5...Qxc5. The point is without nc6, black can easily play a later Qc7. Then can play a rubinstein french structure with e6, or probably even more comfortably a later g6, bg7. Personally play rubinstein french, and c5 lines against Tarrasch french, so not too concerned with facing a queen-side pawn majority.

It's probably why 5Nf3 is more theoretical. There prefer 5...e6 to 5...Bg4 but only because it fits better with rest of my rep. 

 

I agree. Some c3 sicilian lines starting with d5 variation could easily transpose to french like structure like the variation with e6 in your post. The point is that black wants to play sicilian and so he might not be fluent in french defence.