Slaying the Sicilian: Kingside Storms
White's space advantage and mobile pawns in the Sicilian often lead to devastating kingside attacks!
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The goal of the pawn storm is to open lines by forcing captures and removing the pawns in front of the king.
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In the Dragon, with Black's g-pawn advanced to g6, White normally uses a different method of opening a file.
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White often uses his kingside pawn storm not just to open lines on the kingside, but also to fight for the center.
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In a decisive game from the 1969 world championship match between Boris Spassky and Tigran Petrosian, Spassky used a typical method of attacking on the kingside in the Sicilian.
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The key to many of White's kingside attacks in the Sicilian is his space advantage there, which makes it easier to bring up attackers and hard for Black to defend.
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In a sharp Sicilian game, often victory goes to the one who manages to bring the attack home faster. In this case, the players must act with great energy and use forcing moves to keep the initiative.
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Breaking the king's position even without a sure forced mate is often worth a material sacrifice.
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Different attacking methods are used for the different kingside pawn structures that Black adopts in the Sicilian. In the Dragon Sicilian, White uses some of the same methods very frequently. Here we see one of them, from a famous game of Bobby Fischer.
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Sometimes you should conclude a well-crafted attack by removing a key defender.
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Here is yet another of the typical methods White uses to break up Black's kingside defenses.
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White's attack on the kingside often involves a pawn storm, but sometimes the pieces alone can crash through — particularly when both sides are castled kingside.
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White's development lead can allow a rapid attack on the kingside. The attack was quite fast in this blitz game played in Philadelphia’s Franklin Mercantile Chess Club.