No one plays Open Sicilian!

Over about 1600 and most people will play 3. d4. Against closed Sicilians at your level the answer is to not allow the Q side to be blocked and also don't be afraid to play f5. Make sure your pieces get into play. Sometimes I play Be7 and then Bf6 rather than g6. Then you can swap it off if you want.

Well, the first advice might be from around 2010, when IM John Watson wrote, "... For players with very limited experience, ... the Sicilian Defence ... normally leaves you with little room to manoeuvre and is best left until your positional skills develop. ... I'm still not excited about my students playing the Sicilian Defence at [the stage where they have a moderate level of experience and some opening competence], because it almost always means playing with less space and development, and in some cases with exotic and not particularly instructive pawn-structures. ... if you're taking the Sicilian up at [say, 1700 Elo and above], you should put in a lot of serious study time, as well as commit to playing it for a few years. …"

However, if youreally want to stay with the Sicilian, it might be a good idea to play over some of the games in a book like Anti-Sicilians: Move by Move.

http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Anti-Sicilian-p3921.htm

Yes, you told me you're playing black. What's your problem?

The point is that if you're playing against people who will not open the Sicilian then you aren't playing against a very high level of experience or ability and probably you're playing against people who are scared of the Sicilian and that's why they don't play d4, so you're absolutely fine continuing with the Sicilian, following the general advice I gave you. For instance, if you don't play g6 but instead manage to play e6, Be7, Bf6, then you can swap off that dark-squared bishop and then put your pawns on dark squares and get the c8 bishop into the game, without positional weakness of having unprotected dark squares on your kingside. Just make sure your c8  bish doesn't get blocked in .... if necessary leave a pawn sacrifice on that will open the q-side. Never be afraid to give your opponent a present of a pawn if the result is an isolated pawn that's difficult to defend and more play for your pieces. The Sicilian is ALL about activity and creating threats faster than the opponent, although often black has to defend at first to reach that stage of active equality.

Always best to read replies carefully to make sure it isn't you who is mistaken, too! All the best,

I generally play the scillian, but know one every playes e4

This is the absolute low of YGNR's rating over his whole fictitious chess career.

At your level, I would not play the Sicilian. You can't just memorize a single line and think you'll play better chess. White has far too many options as how to play against the Sicilian, and black has to be prepared to face any and all of them. Black has some early option as far as choosing a main line of the Sicilian, but after that, white has plenty of legroom to narrow down the exact variation. In the Sicilian, even the slightest variation of moves can drastically alter the game in short order.

I was directing my comments to the OP who has a rating of 1000, not someone rated 1900 that can debate the nuances of the Sicilian defense.

The understanding of chess at 1000 is practically a kindergardener compared to 1900 who metephorically would be a high school student.

Between reading Yareyarewawa's posts and his rating of 1900, he most certainly didn't get his rating by making random moves and prayings to gods of chess. Yareyarewawa knows what he's talking about just by how he crafts his posts.

So, on average, that would be about 20 seconds per game?

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/was-paul-morphys-real-rating-1700?page=10

I shouldn't have responded to this thread and then it would have been one of the many lost and forgotten ones instead of being a troll thread.

But it's ridiculous to suggest that "someone should not play (any opening) at (their) level". The opposition is about the same ability and there's nothing like getting the feel of how different openings pan out.

Well, I get the impression that the idea that people should play this and not play that is encouraged among or by some very strong players who fancy themselves as chess teachers. I've feeling they aren't going to be very good teachers, though.

In general, a "good teacher" would be someone who can teach chess well to a wide variety of students, who make a wide variety of demands on the teacher's knowledge and ingenuity.

My mother took about 70 driving tests, I believe. Then I gave her one driving lesson before her next driving test, which she passed, the next day.  I doubt she'd have passed her test without the lesson I gave her but that doesn't make me a good driving instructor.

A coach and a teacher are different things. You can be a Rook-and-two-pawns vs. rook end-game coach for middle-to-advanced students.

I would tend to put it the other way round.

Obviously, because if they are chess coaches, they wish very much to elevate their status.

I'm English so perhaps our cultural norms indicate slight differences in meanings of some words.