The Sicilian Löwenthal
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BeThatGuy
Feb 7, 2012
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#1
Recently, I have decided to go into the Löwenthal (shown above) variation of the Sicilian, and I was wondering if anybody familiar with it can give me some tips and pointers on playing it such as tactics, positional ideas, and important moves. Any help would be appreciated, Thank You!
I have no direct experience in the line, but this article might help you if you have not seen it before. http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kaiss22.pdf Only bewere that in the subvariation 8.Qc7 the article suggests 8...Qe7 but here http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kaiss29.pdf the author admits that the move is bad.
In general i guess the basic idea of this line is that the hole on d5 is better attacked/defended by a knight rather than a dark-squared bishop so black provokes Nd6+/Bxd6 hoping to prove his knight pair superior to white bishop pair. I think the line is considered rather solid.
There is an old (and out of print) book by Andrew Soltis on Ken Smith's Chess Digest titled "How to play the Sicilian Defence" which lays out a repertoire based on the Lowenthal (and no, it's not terribly outdated).
There is also a good extended article by Emms and Palliser, part of their book "Dangerous Weapons: The Sicilian".
Amongst the three main moves the most dangerous one is 8.Qc7, followed by 8.Qxf6 (see Khalifman's presentation in his "Opening according to Anand" series), while 8.Qd1 is IMHO the least dagerous of the three. Probably not easy equality for Black, but he should not have any real problem if he knows what he is doing.
The Lowenthal is OK, both active and solid, but not without shortcomings: surrendering the bishop pair that early for just piece actvity means that you wouldn't possibly mind a draw against a much weaker opponent.