WCC2018, Caruana-Carlsen, 1 & 3 rounds, Old Sicilian: Rossolimo attack: Exchange variation

I think b7xB is playable as well, just a different line. Qc7 was apparantly a newish move.

Almost. Stockfish has a good "opinion" about this move, evaluating it as good as the mainstream 6...Nf6 (ev=+0.3, d=24).

You were lied all your life, take always towards the rim

Is the exchange variation better than castling on move 4?

Caruana sees far more deeply than me and they say masters are having success with it lately, but I wonder how well the Rossolimo does among non-masters?

The Rossolimo attack looks interesting, but it seems to me that you are moving a Bishop twice just to take it off the board for a Black Knight that moved once, giving your opponent a tempo plus the Bishop pair.

I’ve tried the White side of the variation called the Canal Attack where Black plays …d6 instead of …Nc6 and all I seemed to get out of that was exchanging Bishops and losing a tempo.

I did get a draw with the Canal Attack (https://www.chess.com/daily/game/169116376) playing White against a former Sydney, Australia High School Champion rated higher than me and it did lead to a strong center for me, but I haven’t used it since.

I’ve been playing the c3 Sicilian in an attempt to keep my White Center Pawns, but only achieved 3 wins, 1 draw, and 5 losses.

So now, not having time to study variation after variation, I’m studying Jesus de la Villa’s book Dismantling the Sicilian, which uses the standard Open Sicilian’s 1 e4 2 Nf3 3 d4 but sticks to common themes regardless of whether Black plays the Najdorf, Dragon, Taimanov, Classical, etc. lines.

I’ve been very aggressive lately: playing the King’s Gambit, sacrificing Rooks in a couple recent games, a Bishop in another, and pushing my Pawn to c5 instead of my favorite c6 (Caro-Kann), and played the Sicilian Dragon as Black for the first time. So maybe I’ll also try the Grand Prix Sicilian (I played it long ago when it was called the Larsen-Santasiere Variation) or the Smith-Morra Gambit.

I play it in OTB tournaments, and enjoy the positions I get.

You damage their pawn structure and get harmonious development (you're trading off your "bad" bishop after all).

Like most openings, if you want to go for maximum, then play the main lines (3.d4)

The funny thing about the elite level is it's pretty much the opposite... since they've analyzed everything extensively, and everything leads to equality, they play for a win by doing "boring" openings, and they play for a draw with "exciting" openings.

Anyway, in your game, when they recapture with the queen like that, there are two main ways to play for a win. You didn't choose either of them, and went for a very stale drawish position with 7.Re1

@stiggling Thanks for your analysis and diagrams. 

What would be your choice: 4...dxc6 or 4...bxc6 ?

Not better imho, it's the question of preferences. 

All right, thanks for your answer.