what should i play vs the sicilian (now a discussion of whites side of the sicilian)

That’s not even my point!

For everybody!

True, but london is fine if you actually LEARN the opening!

in #147 you(frog) just said that that repertoire "makes you sad" if people only play it

im saying i dont play it now, nor have i ever played it; and i actually have played many openings (a good thing, according to the same post)

#199 true but there are people who dont and then "sicilian has so many lines so complicated dont play it aah"

and then some people here are like "i dont care about sidelines" then what else do i do than compare them to this london player

My entire point was that the “awkward change” is not awkward at all! It’s a good thing for you to have multiple things in your repertoire and for you to have been exposed to playing multiple different structures and you get exposed to many more ideas is a good thing. I’m just using that as an example. Play what you want against the Sicilian but what you said makes little sense to me.

#202

hmm ok

but for that point, the second half of your post makes little sense, but i digress

and yeah... i ve done that change already and know enough about openings to where i might be able to reasonably play other openings

and getting exposed to many ideas is exactly why i like the open here, it fills in a gap

and i dont care about the supposed "lot of theory" because of reasons posted already, and i would really like to stop discussing that point

lets talk about specific openings and their ideas here, not some meta analysis of "how to approach the opening"

Official frog ranking of white in the Sicilian!

Open Sicilian - 10/10 Awesome 🔥

Alapin - 9/10 Amazing 🤩

Rossolimo - 9/10 Yes. 👏

Hypermodern 2.Nc3 - 8/10 Cool 😎

Smith Morra - 7/10 Exciting 💥

Closed Sicilian with g3 - 7/10 Valid fr ✅

Grand Prix - 7/10 Nice 👍

Wing Gambit - 5/10 Skeptical 🤔

Gotham 2.a3 - 5/10 Also Skeptical 🤔

Gotham 2.b3 - 6/10 ok ig👌

KIA - 7/10 KIA is never bad 🙌

2.Be2 - 7/10 Coolio 😎

2.f4 - 6/10 suspicious but alright 🫤

Open Sicilian better be paired with at least 1 English Attack

hypermodern 2. Nc3???

do you know what hypermodern means, and if so, show me what you mean by this

I consider it to be the Magnus and Tiviakov Sicilians.

wouldnt call that hypermodern but ok...

Not in the sense of say 1.b3 or the moderns Defense but that’s what I mean by hypermodern 2.Nc3

1) its the surrounding 12 squares not 8

2) catalan isnt really hypermodern

from my pov, catalan cant be hypermodern: white puts a pawn in the center, then backs it up; and this pawn isnt going anywhere (d4)

#218 the grunfeld has a pawn in the center for a grand total of one move in the mainline

but yeah catalan is either way

what would truly be hypermodern is the neo catalan, without d4 played from white

here the c4 pawn can be taken and whites idea is to use the g2 bishop to dominate the diagonal, very hypermodern

the idea of a hypermodern opening is using your flank pawns and bishop to dominate the center without putting central pawns there

heres a common hypermodern setup

and heres an example of it being applied

you give your oppoment a large center and try to tear it down by controll the center via the flank or fianchettoed bishops and knights

thank you

i chose to play an irregular open sicilian setup

wing gambit is trash and relaying on black to not know what hes doing is not a good thing to relay on

smith morra is solid but black gets a comfortable position

closed sicilian gives black too much counterplay

reminds me of levy playing vs his subs who are much worse than him to prove and show the merites of an opening

that was meant to mock the idea of the challenge but ok...

and yes, assuming your opponents will make mistakes (in the opening) is a bad way to go about things in chess (if without them youre worse out of the opening)