What do you play against sicilian defense ?

I prefer alapin sicilian defense :)

As someone who plays the black side of the sicilian... as white I would only want to play the open sicilian. Every anti-sicilian except maybe the Rossolimo is just easier to handle by comparison, it's the reality of it. 
I might in some cases play the closed and transpose into the open except in certain conditions, but that's about it.

The crappiest anti-sicilians which no one should ever play include the Smith Morra, the Bowdler attack, the delayed alapin vs. d6.

Maroczy bind seems very interesting to me as not many players know it well at least up to my level and you usually get simple positions. Otherwise players just open youtube and start learning all other setups against most commonly played attacks. So why not stay ahead in openings already.

Are you serious!? Everyone and their mother seems to be crushing the Sicillian lately. All seems to work. There are the Alapin, the Smith Morras, the McDonnels, and dont get me started on the Rossolimo's.

As a Sicillian player like me, it is a sad time.

The Smith Morra is a very crap opening. The fact you believe the Smith Morra is a good opening says alot about your grasp of theory in the sicilian. Just a little effort in learning the first 8 moves or so in the Smith Morra and white has no compensation for the pawn, black has 70%+ winrates in some of the lines.

Contrary to popular misconception there is very little increase in initiative from sacrificing the c pawn in the Smith Morra, the move c3 is just a wasted tempo, it does not open up any file or line that white ever uses in the attack. It mainly just prevents white from castling queenside... Infact, black ends up using the c file in most cases... and taking back Nxc3 is not developing very much more initiative than taking back Nxd4, a centralizing move useful in most attacks anyway... not nearly enough is gained to justify castling kingside / giving black the c file / going down a pawn, because now black can play even more defensive, black does not even need to worry about pushing d5 since black can just give back a pawn for equality anyway.

You should just put some effort into learning the lines and you will be fine.

And the McDonnell is just bad, it's a worse version of the Grand Prix where black can always respond with e6 > d5. Closed Sicilian is a much better way of playing f4 since you can actually bait black into playing something suboptimal like d6.

Alapin... it's just okay, but I don't think you can complain very hard about near equality as black, white can do much better.

There is one Rossolimo that's good, not multiple.

The Sicilian is as tough and as resilient as it ever was.

A Heroic Defense in the Sicilian Najdorf - Kids, don't try this at home! - Chess Forums - Chess.com

I play the Grand Prix. Very fun, very aggressive, and deadly if you know the ideas and lines. I usually develop both knights before the bishop because if they prepare for d5 early then I want to bail out with Bb6 and then trade my bishop off with their knight which is meh but playable. If they don't prepare d5 then I am basically guaranteed a terrifying attack, and if black wastes any tempos trying to counter attack, they get crushed. Especially if black thinks they have time to play Nxc2 and Nxa1.

I scored better with the Alapin though fwiw, this is just more fun.

Lol, dude. We are of similar rating and we both go for the Kan's. Don't lecture me.

You get crushed in Sicillian as much as I do- about 60% of the time.

I don't play the Kan, I play the classical...

I'm correcting you because you made multiple wrong statements. You know, because whether what you say is correct is a matter of reason, not some mindless deferral to authority. i.e. when I read your misinformed statement I didn't think to myself: "well his rating is like 1900ish so even though he's just said something incorrect I couldn't possibly disagree because we're of similar rating".

The Smith Morra is a crap opening where black ends up with 70%+ winrates. If you don't know the lines you can lose to it. If you know the lines... you won't very often. This has nothing to do with you or I, it is an objective fact.

In recent years, I have preferred the Closed Sicilian / Grand Prix complex depending on my opponents.

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In previous years, I use to play Open Sicilian.

- Against Sicilian Dragon - Yugoslav Attack

- Against Classical - Fisher/Sozin Attack (6. Bc4)

- Against Nadjorf - I tried 2 different lines Fischer/Sozin Attack (6.Bc4) and the 6. G3 Line.

I don’t know if G3 line has name or not. When I use to play it, it didn’t have a name.

- Against Sicilian Schevengian - I never studied a line to play against it because I never saw it. The only people I saw playing it were players who transpose into from Nadjorf move order.

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I have never played:

- Alapin

- Smith Morra

- Mcdonnell

- Rossolimo

From white side!

Their is a line similar to Rossolimo in Grand Prix known as positional Grand Prix with Bb5, but it is different I think. I don’t think people would call them the same.

If someone played g3 against me I'd probably respond with g6 and it's just going to be a long equal game. Classical players generally understand that the only testing line against them is the richter-rauzer. It's one of the biggest selling points of the classical... There are a few stray lines in the Sozin that can be good if you know them very well and black doesn't, but not too many. Najdorf on the other hand there are like 10 serious lines you have to know.

But if you know how to play the rauzer you're honestly just going to crush club players with it, most lines have like 60-80% winrates for white as you go deeper. It's very difficult to play for black, white has like 7 viable moves at a given time and always tons of tactics, black has to deeply understand the position. Black really can't play the position algorithmically for very long because the variation explodes in size... it's different in this respect from testing lines against the dragon or scheveningen or sveshnikov. But the rauzer is the only reason the classical is not as popular as the Najdorf, or the dragon.

@Post #13

Join the Light Side Ibrust!

The Classical Sicilian will fall to hands of Light Square Bishop (Bc4)

Fear is the way of the Dark side Bg5, but you should let go such fear.

That isn’t the move to be afraid of.