in today's ten-minute chess opening video you're gonna learn the Sicilian defense for the black
pieces but if I'm being completely honest what I always tell people is you should not be playing
the Sicilian until you're at least 2,000 which might sound completely different than something
you've been told before or crazy but it's one of the most complex and interesting and and and just
crazy systems that that's out there so II 4 C 5 and from here the Sicilian takes about three or
four different turns Knight f3 followed by the move pawn to d4 is the open Sicilian inviting
a trade in the center and then turning into one of the many many mainline Sicilians that exists
after that you have the closed Sicilian which is essentially a set up where white does not play the
move d4 white can do that by playing Knight c3 followed by g3 and Bishop g2 or the grand prix
attack with f4 and eventual Bishop g2 or f4 Bishop c4 or even some other tricky sidelines
with Bishop c4 bit should be five and not moving the pawns and then there's the gambits obviously
there's the Smith Mora gambit with d4 takes and then c3 not to mention the wing gambit and the
delayed wing gambit with a 3 B 4 and then there's basically the sidelines for example the Aleph in
Sicilian which when white tries to play d4 and reinforce with a pawn not to mention you know
also b3 which I like to play and I recommend and so on and so forth so how on earth does one deal
with all this well first you need to pick what you want to play against the open Sicilian and
you know in picking that you may want to play something that has overlap with systems in the
close Sicilian and the other sideline so for example a Sicilian dragon an accelerated dragon
is when you play knight c6 g6 and Bishop g7 you delay the movement of this Knight that might
look something like Knight f3 knight c6 but even here you need to deal with the Rasul emo which
is a mainline Sicilian at this point and has been played by you know in the last World Championship
match between Cora wanna and Magnus and a bunch of games but let's say d4 takes and then g6 and you
try to play Bishop g7 you Castle kingside you're you use the open file and the main lines you have
you know crazy attacking positions so if you play the dragon the accelerated dragon with knight c6
Bishop g7 and so on against the open Sicilian it might make it easier to play against the closed
Sicilian because you already know what to do right you kind of develop in the same way but a good
Sicilian player just like in the London system for example will adjust their weapons based on their
opponent setup one thing that I like to recommend against Knight c3 is the very early a 6 b5 system
and this just basically tries to fight white right away you play a6 and if they try to just set up
their pieces you know you start fighting with b4 ecigs d5 and so on and and and and white never
really gets comfortable this might help some of you close Sicilian folks now my one of my personal
favorites is is e 6 Sicilians I'm a big fan of ecig Sicilians and that whole branch is like you
know the tamanna' of the con as well as like the two Knights Sicilian so for example I hear there
is um there's also the Knight f6 Knight c3 Bishop before the pin variation of the Sicilian highly
recommend you know for lower rated players give this a look the pin variation and there's the two
nights with knight c6 very tricky very tactical system a lot of Queen b6 ideas in general I would
kind of push the more you know 1500 1600 level players who are watching and lower for the tricky
Sicilians you don't need to play the knight or if you don't need to play the special ego of the
stuff that the top level guys are playing because you can't handle it I mean that's unfortunately
the truth you just there's too much memory there's too much experience that comes with
this so play the trickier stuff you might really like it there's also the classical Sicilian which
instead of you know e 6 you play like this and then here there's the early e 5 kalashnikov the
you know the knight of 65 sveshnikov but there's also just Knight f6 Knight c3 d6 and this is known
as the classical variation of the Sicilian also very interesting but what I would recommend for
the lower rated viewers is pick something that has an overlap with something else the early g6
Sicilian positions like the dragon you can get against a lot of different things and then you
can build your experience of where to put the pieces and how to how to attack in the center
how to at on the queenside and so on and the high rated players I would recommend that you just you
know you you you diversify your weapons because you can memorize stuff more you've got a lot more
experience with playing certain positions now the sidelines of the Sicilian are obviously a
bit tricky so for example the alop in Sicilian you have to choose basically between two main lines
the knight f6 system which is when you plop your knight in the center of the board or the d5 system
now I'm I like the d5 system but you've got to be comfortable with having a queen in the center and
the only way you're gonna learn this is getting some sort of book some sort of video resources
on YouTube or you know buying an openings book and watching some top-level players looking at how a
couple of really strong players excelled in these systems and with these positions from the black
side ah one other thing that you can do though if you're a g6 players you can play g6 here and get
a position that looks kind of like this with d5 this is a pretty interesting strategic battle you
try to play against kind of the you know potential target in the center that white would get and uh
you know if you're about 16 1700 and lower at this level playing a bit more positionally against an
aggressive set up that white employees like this could be very good for you b3 Sicilian which is
actually what I recommend in my openings course and just I should say in general in this video
I'm not gonna cover the Sicilian from the white side this is only for folks that want to play it
with the black pieces if you want tips against the Sicilian look at the 10-minute efore guide
but you know b3 g6 is actually still theoretically fine and this position is known to be totally okay
for black if you know what you're doing but you know you need to build your experience there I
think honestly that's like the best quick summary that I can give you and if we just go in further
detail on the Sicilian defense and how the middle games might progress a lot of it depends on which
way white is going to castle so you'll note that in the Sicilian especially if you employ
like a dragon setup for example like g6 the most aggressive Sicilians are with Queen d2 in long
castles and then against these you know white is gonna play f3 g for h5 against you and what
you're gonna have to do is create counter play f3 is always useful to prevent 94 you're going to
need to create counter play on the C file and in the center so moves like d5 if they prevent that
then DC Bishop d7 rook c8 or a6 b5 and and so on and so forth but that's that's generally how you
would play these kind of fianchetto positions with the bishop and if you decide to enter territory in
the open Sicilian that is more theoretical and now theory excuse me not set up base like the dragon
setups like I said my recommendation is to lean toward east six positions if you go for the knight
Orff I'm going to be completely honest with you I can't help you and the reason why I can't help you
is I will just give you a warning in this position there are 15 different moves that white can play
according to the database they have all been played by grandmasters it's probably even more
than 15 some just aren't that great so you've got to know what you're doing is what I'm saying now
if you're about 2,000 plus I would say try to play the knight or if if you want but it's a lot easier
to play more offbeat sicilians because people don't study the offbeat sicilians if you play
a knight or if you're playing into preparation you play a dragon you might be playing into
preparation if you play a con so silly n' like this you might not and Queen c7 knight c6 and
so on and try to set up like a hedgehog position you're not playing into a lot of prep you might be
if you're playing somebody who's got a lot of experience but a two-night Sicilian with with
luck with this setup and a lot of different you know dark-squared tactics in the center I can't
you know I highly doubt you're gonna be playing against somebody who's super super theoretically
prepared so these are all your options okay I gave you you know some options how to play against the
close Sicilian as well my personal favorite the a6 b5 stuff you know the Kings Indian attack with d3
g3 Bishop g2 that does happen you might also get it you know for example in this format you just
need to have a weapon against the Kings Indian attack you might you might fee and keto here and
try to play like d5 with 97 but this is really a sign of somebody who's not comfortable engaging
in a in a crazy fight against the Sicilian player and therefore you know will not enjoy if you if
you begin kind of mobilizing in the center and creating problems right away I'm not gonna lie
I did not expect to get through a full Sicilian video in 10 minutes or less but we're right about
9 minutes and I'm pretty impressed because I feel as though I covered everything in as
much detail I could I gave you as many options against the open the closed the sidelines as I
could if you've got any questions on developing your Sicilian repertoire please put them in the
comments below I would be happy to answer them I would love to answer them I you know I love
getting involved when when folks ask me questions and as always let me know your thoughts like the
video share it with a Sicilian practitioner or a soon-to-be Sicilian practitioner and the the
question I have for you today is name a game that you play that's not chess you know a video game a
board game the game of life if you will and I'll see you in the next ten minute opening video