34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent introduction to the Sicilian Defence, February 11, 2005
This review is from: Starting Out: The Sicilian (Starting Out - Everyman Chess) (Paperback)
John Emms is a fine author and I think this is a great book.
Suppose you are a novice at chess tournaments. One of the most enjoyable openings you can play is the White side of an Open Sicilian (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3, followed by 3 d4). The strategic ideas are clear and there are plenty of grandmaster games to use as examples. Your pawns fly down the board to open lines. And your challenge is to find the most efficient squares for your pieces. Some people want to avoid the Open Sicilian on the grounds that the lines are too complex. Don't be one of them! I think the lines are far tougher for Black than they are for White.
Emms starts by reminding us that if you play 1 e4, you'll see 1...c5 half the time.
There is one little problem with 2 Nf3 and 3 d4 of course. You just gave away your d-pawn for Black's c-pawn. As Emms warns us, if you don't play aggressively, you should lose.
This book should give you an idea of which lines you'll feel comfortable with as White.
The first system we see is the Dragon. Emms introduces the Yugoslav attack, the Classical Variation, the Levenfish attack, and 6 g3 (personally, I think that unless you play the Yugoslav or the Levenfish, you might as well not play an Open Sicilian). In the Yugoslav, as Fischer said and as Emms reminds us, you pry open the h-file (with your h-pawn) and then "sac, sac, mate!" And, of course, you trade your trashy queen bishop for Black's gorgeous Dragon Bishop. In the Yugoslav, Emms shows us 9 Bc4 and 0-0-0. You may also want to investigate 9 g4. I also like the Levenfish, which is very easy for White and very tricky for Black. In it, you blast away at Black's position with 7 e5.
The next chapter is on the Najdorf. What do you do with your Queen Bishop now? Emms shows us two popular ideas. In the Main Line (6 Bg5), that Bishop just gets in your way, so you save time by exchanging it for the Black Knight on f6. In this line, Emms covers 10 g4, but you may want to look at 10 Bd3 as well. The other option is 6 Be3, with the idea of an eventual Qd2. Before you decide to try this, play over the game Emms shows where Black plays 6...Ng4.
Chapter 3 is the Scheveningen, where you have several good choices: 6 g4 (the Keres attack), 6 Be3 (the English attack) and 6 Bc4 (the Fischer attack). I happen to prefer the latter, because I think it gives me the best chance of finding something useful for my Queen Bishop to do.
Next is the Sveshnikov. Here, Emms gives us the choice of 9 Bxf6 or 9 Nd5. 9 Bxf6 gxf6 10 Nd5 f5 is why I do not play the Sveshnikov for Black. I think 11 Bxb5 and even 11 Nxb5 are very dangerous for Black. But no matter what White plays, Emms explains that she has to figure out what to do about her pathetic horse on a3.
After that, the author introduces us to the Richter-Rauzer attack and the Sozin and Velimirovic attacks against the Classical Sicilian. The Velimirovic attack is especially fun to play for White. You castle queenside, play Rhg1, g4, g5, and mate Black with your major pieces.
That leaves us with five other Open Sicilians (Emms does not show us the O'Kelly variation, namely 2...a6, so just learn 3 c3 against it). They are the Taimanov (where 5 Nb5 is the most interesting), the Accelerated Dragon (where White's Queen Bishop is so classy that she may not even want to trade it for Black's dragon bishop), the Four Knights Sicilian (not popular for Black due to her isolated queen pawn), the Kan, and the Kalashnikov.
The Kan gives both sides great flexibility. This is an excellent choice for Black against a novice, as the best lines for White are slow and positional. If you are White, you simply have to learn how to play the Maroczy Bind against it.
The Kalashnikov is the only Sicilian system that I am willing to play as Black. Emms shows that both sides have plenty of options. Play is more positional than tactical. Again, White should play c4 with a Maroczy Bind, to prevent d5 by Black. And now it is Black who is trying to trade her worthless king bishop for White's Queen Bishop!
For those who want to play the Sicilian with Black (or who want to avoid 3 d4 with White), Emms concludes with the four best White alternatives: 3 Bb5, 2 c3, 2 Nc3, and 2 d4. By the way, I've actually seen people get into these via 1 Nc3 c5 2 e4 and even 1 c3? c5 2 e4.
I recommend this book. If you don't yet play the Open Sicilian with White, this book ought to add at least 100 points to your rating.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great for a USCF 1200 through 1600 player!, July 20, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Starting Out: The Sicilian (Starting Out - Everyman Chess) (Paperback)
I'm a USCF 1600-1700 player, and I play the Sicilian as Black against 1. e4. To the frustration of my chess coach, I've memorized a great deal of Sicilian theory out to 15 moves. My chess coach's point is that the importance of learning openings at my level is to learn the ideas rather than the moves. The point of this book is to accomplish just that, and to keep the language down to 8th grade reading level. However, I'm still not 100% sure what the phrase "prise open the h-file" means -- maybe it's written for 8th grade in England.
This book does a fine job of giving you the ideas behind the Dragon, the Najdorf, the Scheveningen, the Sveshnikov, Bb5 systems, and c3 systems. More importantly for me, it fills in gaps in why moves that look perfectly good to me are not very good at all. An example of this is to explain how to "punish" 6. f3 in an Open Sicilian. Two sentences in the book left me with over an hour of thinking how novel the author's approach was.
The reason for marking the rating down to 4 stars lies in the 3 chapters of the book not mentioned above. The chapter on the "Classical" variation is lost on me. It's three variations are really sidelines of Najdorf or Scheveningen games. The biggest disappointment is in the chapter on "Other Systems" where the Accelerated Dragon is mentioned briefly. When contrasted with how well the three main ideas in the Dragon Variation are illustrated, it makes buying this book without another Sicilian reference a very dangerous prospect. In practice, I face the Accelerated Dragon very often, and you should NOT attempt a Yugoslav Attack against an Accelerated Dragon (that's why they call it Accelerated!!).
If you're a Sicilian fanatic or a wannabe you should buy this book as a "return to first principles" book. Non-Sicilian players who play 1. e4 and players who are USCF 1200-1600 should also be able to benefit.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best introduction to the sicilian defence, July 29, 2002
This review is from: Starting Out: The Sicilian (Starting Out - Everyman Chess) (Paperback)
This is an INTRODUCTION to the sicilian, it will give you an overview of the basic plans in the most common lines. I think it is well written, and does not go too deeply into variations. My only complaints are twofold:
1: No index of variations
2: Ordering of systems. Dragon is first, Najdorf is second, c3 is nearly last. I think c3 should be first, because it is less theoretically sharp, but that's a quibble.
I recommend this book to everyone who is thinking of playing the sicilian or plays against it often. I'm a Caro-Kann player by heart, but I think some knowledge of the sicilian will help me as white when I play 1. e4 -- perhaps i'll even start playing something besides 2. c3 with a little bit of theoretical backing.
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