Switching to Sicilian, but which Sicilian?

You should learn The Sicilian Nimzowitsch. It is a very rare variation of the Sicilian with great lines and attacking chances for black that your opponent will not be prepared for. There is also a great Chess.com lesson series on the Sicilian Nimzowitsch.

@mrOpenRuy

Bowdler Attack!? Omfg 🤢

The Sicilian Nimzowitsch has been played in around 4000 of the around 700000 Sicilian Defense master games on the chess.com database. It is a fine opening that has been used successfully to defeat Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, and other great players.

doesnt mean its good, just a surprise weapon at most

I faced it once over the board about 40 years ago and won. The guy who played it was taking lessons and was told to play that variation, because it was so unexpected. I had never seen anybody play it but figured it out. Main lines are main lines for a reason.

That is the anecdotal fallacy. A small personal experience does not offset the general success of the opening. With good preparation, a player can do very well with the Sicilian Nimzowitsch, and can even transpose into other variations of the Sicilian.

A surprise weapon is still worth learning, especially to surprise higher rated players in tournaments. If you do not like the opening, you can easily transpose back into another variation of the Sicilian after throwing your opponent with the Sicilian Nimzowitsch.

That's because I only play e4 when I'm messing around. Something that should be pretty obvious since you spent all that time exploring my openings lol

oh now you talk???

dont forget that youre just another london npc, you follow gotham mindlessly and lisen to everything he says, you cant be having much of an opinion

Yeah because I'm not online watching my notifications 24/7 lol.

You can't really say anything about my openings considering I'm literally higher rated than you. Any book opening is enough to get you into the middle and from there it's all skill. People act like openings decide the game when in fact they dont.

How come you know so much about the Sicilian when you don't even play e4?

master matthew i would whip you around like if it was nothing easily do not be talking

Never said I did 🙂

Ok 😆

This is the problem. You say there's too much theory but you don't even know if that's true, if it is then why or why that's bad because you don't play the Sicilian or play e4. You haven't bothered to learn anything about it and then tell others not to bother learning anything about it.

sent the challenge. lets see what you got

(daily)

I once saw Gotham Chess make the same argument about the Sicilian: "Too much theory for a beginner/Intermediate player". This assumes that chess players will succeed if they memorize many variants of a sharp opening. I would rather believe that beginners can develop chess intuition and practice accurate moves. With that goal in mind, the Sicilian is fine for a beginner, because the basic plan behind Black 's moves can be learned and brought into practice at almost any level.

GothamChess just hates the Sicilian because he said he lost a lot of games in it. That's why he tries to discourage everyone else from playing it: his own failure.

gothamchess´s opening rep of the sicilian consists of this: