Hi everyone,
I've never played the Open Sicilian because of its reputation as a theoretical nightmare. I tried every Anti-Sicilian in the book but didn't like any of them except the Morra, because play is rather similar to that in the Open. Alas, my opponents would mostly decline the gambit and transpose to the Alapin, which was OK if they'd play the d5 variation because I like playing IQP positions. But most of my opponents would play the Nf6 variation instead, considered the better variation for Black, but I absolutely HATED playing it as White.
Then I read some people on this forum saying: in the lower regions of amateur play, theory doesn't matter that much, because most of your opponents don't know the theory either, and games are more often than not decided by mistakes rather than by the latest theoretical novelty. This made a lot of sense and it prompted me to look again at the Open.
Edmar Mednis' "Practical Opening Tips" features a chapter on the Open Sicilian, in which he recommends White to play more or less the same piece placement based on the Sozin in all 2 ...d6 variations: Dragon, Accelerated Dragon, Najdorf, Scheveningen and Classical. At last, some order in the chaos of variations... So I also looked for such a "common denominator" for the non-2 ...d6 variations and after some analysis found out that all of them except the Kan could be met by 4 Nb5 or 5 Nb5 (depending on whether or not Black would play 4 ...Nf6) and pressure on the d5 square.
This is of course only a framework for further study of the individual variations, but I think it'll make such study easier than without it. I think even an amateur can and should play the Open and have fun, even if he doesn't necessarily play like a GM.
The important thing, of course, is to take a correct start... You guys think think this is a good way to start?
By the way, I've also considered playing the English Attack against anything Black would throw at me, which of course looks very attractive albeit a bit over-aggressive to my taste... And does it really work against ANYTHING?! ???
Look forward to your comments!