What is best to play against the scicillian defence ?

When the guy playing the Alapin hangs his knight and then his rook later in the game, I'm sure you feel better. Why are people rated ~1000 studying theory?

Because they don't want to play the 4 knights every game :p

I have no idea what this means. I have a 1486 rating in the 25+10 pool on ICC, play the Sicilian, and haven't won one game yet because of studying opening theory. Every single win had to do with tactics and endgames.

Cool ,getting a better support

You can't play the sicilian without knowing at least some theory.

I just totally disagree. At the 1000-1300 level you can play anything without knowing any theory. The first 2-5 book moves aren't what's going to decide the game. The terrible tactics of both players in the game is going to.

1.e4, 2.Nf3, 3.d4.  That's all you need to know until you get to 1800+

 Here we go...just played this game. White vs the Semi-Slav. Theory heavy, right? I have never once even glanced at what white should do against the Semi-Slav. Ever. Why? Because it's irrelevant. I'm white vs someone who makes a ton of tactical mistakes and miscalculations. Just play sound tactically and pick him apart. He'll hang himself if you just let him:

In the sicilian if you're clueless as black you can easily get yourself mated quickly especially in the najdorf and dragon lines.

Sir, the point is that if you play sound tactically - NO - you won't be clueless or get mated quickly. It has nothing to do with opening theory. It has to do with playing chess. If you make poor tactical decisions, you will probably lose. If you don't, you'll probably win. I mean, you could give the guy a pawn or two in the opening and still win if you're considerably better tactically. It's not about who knows more theory at our level and even a bit above.

In the 1000-1400 range games are decided based on mistakes. The theory becomes more relevant at 1800+ where few mistakes are made in the opening and early middlegame. They're playing positions they've been playing their whole lives. THAT's when the cat and mouse game of opening theory begins. Not when you read a book on the Najdorf and then hang your rook in the next game. You lost because you hung your rook ...not because of anything that even remotely pertains to the opening.

1200 players aren't sound tactically and shouldn't be playing the sicilian period. If you're not good enough to study theory then you're not good enough to play the sicilian.

He's saying you don't need theory at that level, just tactics. But people at his level won't see tactics very well.

At my level? I have a 1486 rating in the 25+10 pool on ICC. A 1309 standard, a 1290 15-minute, etc. I haven't played much on here in a couple of weeks. I can assure you, on ICC, people are seeing tactics in the 1200-1500 range. It's a little more competitive over there.

You only have a 1576 standard over here after nearly 500 standard games played. I didn't start playing chess competitively (or at all really) until this very year. Your tactics rating is roughly 100 points higher than mine. We're basically on the same level and if you're ahead, it's not by much.

"... In the spring of 1982, I participated in another scholastic tournament ... That summer, I went through all my father's copies of the Danish chess magazine, Skakbladet, to locate games with 1 c4, ... What I should have done was to start out with [The Opening Play in Chess by Bent Larsen], and read it from cover to cover. When it came to the theoretical section, I should have played over all the examples. This would have enabled me to learn first the basics of understanding the openings, and then, when playing through the opening variations, it could have given me ideas which openings to choose for my repertoire. ..." - FM Carsten Hansen (2010)

I started playing the sicilian when I was 1100 USCF and it did nothing but stunt my growth as a chess player. Recently I got over 1900 USCF and it's still much easier for white than black with no theory in the sicilian.

If you're a 1900 USCF I'm in pretty good shape being in my first year.

So doing it over again, what would you play as black against e4 when you were 1200-1600?

I started to play the caro kann, pirc and sometimes e5. I now play e5 more than anything else, and started playing the sicilian frequently again around 1500.

Open sicilian!

People say the Open Sicilian is the best way to combat the Sicilian. I'm not sure that's true at all. Sure, white gets an initiative, but does he get an advantage in the long run if black knows his stuff? Er...probably not. And in many lines, due to the exchange on d4 on move 3, black emerges with two center pawns to white's one center pawn in the late middlegame or endgame, meaning that the ...d5 break will give black at least equality and often the better game.

Now definitely it's all complicated, and all the complications of the Open Sicilian, at least early on, tend to work in white's favor because white has freer development and an initiative. But in my view, contrary to what others have said, there's no logical basis for why the Open Sicilian must be the best way to combat the Sicilian. It makes little sense to me actually. White gets a development advantage which often doesn't last, and gives black two center pawns, and also enters into positions which, from a practical standpoint, require tons of theory and theoretical maintenance to play. Even at master and GM level people are moving away from the Open Sicilian in many cases. In today's high-level games, after the moves 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6, super-GMs nowadays are almost preferring the Rossolimo with 3. Bb5 over the Open Sicilian with 3. d4, because they're hitting a brick wall with the Sveshnikov! And the Najdorf after 2...d6 can be just as difficult.

To make a long story short, there are many ways for white to play, but I recommend 2. c3 for someone who doesn't know what to play at all against the Sicilian. I don't see a logical basis why 2. c3 is worse than 2. Nf3 and 3. d4. Some say that c3 Sicilian is a draw with best play. This is almost certainly true. So what? As Kasparov once said, "Chess is a draw". Against perfect play by the opposition you can't expect to win anyway, but perfect play doesn't really exist because even GMs make errors. I'm sure that after the moves 1. e4 c5 the result of a perfectly played game would be a draw anyway. And white does have chances to achieve an advantage in the 2. c3 Sicilian. Perhaps not in all the old mainlines, but in many of the more modern attempts, such as 1. e4 c5 2. c3 Nf6 3. e5 Nd5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Bc4 Nb6 6. Bb3 and 1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. dxc5. In any case, I recommend the move 2. c3 against the Sicilian, and I think it's not worth trying to learn the Open Sicilian just because it's often considered to be "best play".