top 5 responses to the Sicilian ranked

You haven't proven any point. Nothing you say applies differently to any other opening.

I will play later when I feel like it.

Anti-Sicilians are exclusive to 1.e4, c5……

French Exchange is exclusive to the French.

Four Knights and King's Gambit are exclusive to e5.

Fantasy is exclusive to the Caro-Kann.

etc. etc.

You clearly miss the point and don’t follow.

No, you are not following and now are making nothing arguments.

"You should believe what I believe"

"Well I don't because of x reason"

"Aw man, you just don't get it"

Rhetorical argument.

@Chuck639

I'm not even disagreeing with what you said.

• Anti-Sicilians are exclusive to the Sicilian.
• French Exchange is exclusive to the French.
• Four Knights, King's Gambit and Ruy Lopez are exclusive to e5.
• Fantasy and Panov Attack are exclusive to the Caro-Kann.

True.

What is the topic of this thread?

I don’t agree #1 is the Open Sicilian because I only see it a minority of the time at the 1600-2000 bracket.

I don’t see #2 or #3 because I don’t play the Old Variation.

May be you see more Open Sicilians at the 900-1200 bracket?

May be the situation is just unique to you.

This logic doesn’t hold up though. I see the Marshall QGD and the Baltic more commonly than the Slav and Semi-Slav in the 1700-1900 bracket, but that does NOT make them better defenses, all it does is artificially inflate my ELO.

Topic is "top 5 responses to the Sicilian ranked". I think most people interpret the word top as best/highest quality. I think you are interpreting the word top as most frequently played. Open Sicilian is the top/best response to the Sicilian.

A lot of the people I play with OTB or online play Open Sicilian. I accept playing against anti-Sicilians as part of playing the Sicilian. The same way a French player accepts playing the Exchange as part of playing the French. You can't force the opponent to make certain moves.

Which coaches?

@Ultimate_trashtalker

Your argument is purely rhetorical. Like you just roll your eyes saying "you just don't get it" like you know everything, but won't listen to any of the points or any other view yourself.

It’s hard to say in your situation because you’re a d4 player.

E4 is the most popular opening so the sample size would be larger and more accurate, if not, conclusive.

Top or best for who? Not in my case.

Not a good idea to let YT influence you which it clearly has.

No-one here knows who those coaches are, why they should be respected or why they are automatically right.

I know that Andras Toth is a respectable chess coach and IM who teaches beautiful chess but you think your opinion is undeniably better than his.

top or best for the little known people called gms

Ok, so I shouldn't let an IM and chess coach influence me but I should let you influence me?

Hanging Pawns. Great channel

You also need to know some other lines though, it’s not just those two

Sure but this point still stands back when I was an e4 player. I genuinely saw more Czech/Small Center Pirc games than French games total, more Owen’s games than Caro-Kann games, more Philidor games than Petrovs and Nc6 games, more Old Steinitz games than Morphy and Berlin games, et cetera. People will always play objectively worse openings for one reason or another, but they’re still objectively worse openings.

Is that who you follow?

If this GM plays that, so will I?

Theres a big gap between 2500 to 900 where knowledge and ideas don’t even apply or impractical.

@Ultimate_trashtalker

I watched Judit Polgar's Sicilian series on youtube which is pure gold. It's a mix of some different Sicilians from both colours but it's very helpful in understanding motifs and ideas which apply to many Sicilians.

Andras Toth has plenty of videos on Najdorf games. His Sicilian opening guides are primarily focused on anti-Sicilians though.

Anish Giri and Daniel King videos are also very good.