Thanks for the detailed explanation. These concepts do make sense to me, and I was thinking along the lines of some of your points (but much less concrete) after you told me that it's a good move. But no, I would not have come up with the idea on my own OTB, so I'll happily add it to my analysis.
Suggestions vs. Sicilian, French & King's Gambit
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Jul 23, 2025
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#23
Strayaningen wrote:
crazedrat1000 wrote:
Against 2... d6, which leads to the Dragon / Najdorf / Classical, I would just push d4 and enter the main lines. The open lines here are generally devastating if white plays them correctly. The Yugoslav and Richter-Rauzer crush black.... Yes it's alot of theory, but you signed up for that when you played 1. e4. If you want to avoid theory play anything else... Against the Najdorf... I like the Adams attack, which is h3. There are other good lines, you have like 10 viable options vs Najdorf as white and honestly... the Najdorf is one of the easiest sicilians for white to deal with since he sees it so often and white is the one who directs the game. For proof, compare winrates of the Najdorf against other sicilians, it's one of the lowest scoring.
Yeah, I agree with this (re the Najdorf). At all of 2000-2200, 2200-2500 and 2500+ on Lichess, the Najdorf scores the worst for Black out of any of the three ...d6 Sicilians. In fact, it's the only one of them where Black is not outscoring White.
Objectively the Rauzer is OK for Black but it's very difficult to play and practically speaking White is better (I play the Classical myself). I mention this just because in contrast, the Yugoslav is not objectively OK for Black. I know there are the weird endgame lines where Black is surviving, but the opposite side attack lines, which are the reason to play the Dragon, are very dubious. The amount of theory you have to know as White to take Black on is brutal though. I stopped playing the main line 9. Bc4 Yugoslav when I had one line that went to move 22 and White was still down two pawns but it was +1.
I also play the Classical, but there's a very specific line I play to sort-of cheese it. I think it's very difficult if white knows exactly what he's doing, but with this particular line I think I'll probably never reach a level to where I need to worry about that. However it's not really more difficult than other classical lines, infact your kingside remains intact so maybe even practically better. But usually white will misplay this since he needs to play something very irrelevant looking on the next move, or you're just doing great, infact probably better. White almost never gets the next move right here.
Sam Shankland has played more traditional lines with success even at very high levels so maybe even then it's fine. At the same time, I don't expect many black players to be well prepared in the Rauzer in the same way and I think white will crush in most cases.
It's just a strange opening where I'd gladly play both sides.
Please explain, but I don't see what's wrong with 10.Bd2. It's more common even among masters and the best move according to the engine.
I'm not an engine, so unless I want to memorize the ENTIRE engine line, I would rather play a move that makes good sense to a Human.
The rationale for Kf1 is this:
Assuming that Black avoids the f6 lines, White is guaranteed a space advantage by the e5 vs e6 Pawn ram. The practical effect of a space advantage increases in importance on a crowded board, and is much reduced in importance once several pieces have been exchanged off. This is easy to understand... seven pieces stuffed into a cramped position will get in each other's way much more often than three pieces stuffed into the same cramped position.
So the first point of Kf1 is that it avoids any piece exchanges. Thus keeping the board more congested, and thereby accenting White's space advantage.
The second point is that White will be making use of his space advantage to launch a King's side attack, for which a Rook sitting on h1 - combined with the advance of the White h-Pawn - will be quite useful. So the Rook is not misplaced by White's Kf1 move.
The third point is that despite appearances, the King is not being misplaced either. Which direction should White's King go? Not to the Q-side, directly in front of Black's attack. It belongs on g2, after the g-Pawn moves to g3. So if White were able to castle K-side, then to reach a position with the King on g2 and the Rook back on h1 would require FOUR moves (0-0, g3, Kg2, Rh1) while simply WALKING over only requires THREE moves (Kf1, g3, Kg2), since the Rook is already on h1.
The fourth point is that after Kf1 the Black Bishop sitting on b4 just looks foolish. White is already threatening to play a3 and perhaps b4 as well, allowing Bb2 to cover d4.
As you can see, the Kf1 move makes all sorts of sense TO A HUMAN. Maybe not to a computer.
Have you read my essay on Static Analysis? It might make these concepts clearer.
GM Larry Evans' method of static analysis - Chess Forums - Chess.com
Read my posts #4, 7-to-10, and especially #12. Then play over the three sample games on pages 1 and 2 of the thread, reading the notes.