How not to play against the dragon

How Not To Play Against The Dragon

Here is my first real online game of 2010 that is rated. As this was such a giant leap I thought it best to play an exciting variation of the sicilian dragon. Much to my disappointment however, we did not see the fireworks of a yugoslav, lavenfish, or other queenside castles. Instead we saw an opening that was far from mainline and a much slower dragon than I'm used to with the biggest problem with the opening i found for white was the amazing amount of tempo his bishop used.

However a dragon is still a dragon and there was still a lot of queenside play to be sure.

(by the way i was referring to blocking the check after Bb5+ when i said "How would you block?? I prefer the bishop but does anyone have a reason why the knight is better"... Sorry about that)

Another game i played just after that was much shorter as my opponent tried something that i had never seen before but was perhaps a little overzealous in his play. I would be interested to see if his idea of rushing the queens pawns to counter my queenside counterplay. He made a blunder with the move g3? and i never looked back. However it would be interesting to see if the game would have ended differently had he not made this oversight. This game has less alternate lines as i felt that they were not needed and play was straigtforward

The dragon is a great opening for those who want an exciting game with blood drawn on both sides of the board. It is often said that the yugoslav counters the dragon completely, however there's just something about this line that keeps me coming back for more. If people like Carlsen and Kasparov play it successfully, I don't see any reason why i shouldn't at least try (though i definately need a lot of practice).