Darthmambo wrote on 03/02/07 at 02:23:18:


"The safest" is somewhat dismissive of 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.Bb5, suggesting 4...Nd4! as an antidote

Thanks all. First I did check the Benjamin articals, but I did not know about the Kenilworthian, oh and da, lol, I have to check Chess Pub.

I have Taming the Siclian, but he really does not go into those lines, he plays nc3, but doesn't he just say something about it being an important transpositon, and then does not really go into that. I will check again though.

Is the safest sicilian for white?

Hello,

As I said in another thread the "Safest Sicillian" covers 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4. Bb5. Probably the newer "Sharpest .." covers something similar with 2... d6, but don't know for sure.

Bye John S

I'm not aware of any good printed sources for this, but there is quite a bit on the internet. My apologies if you are aware of these sources already, but here goes...

There is a series of articles on some of these lines on jeremysilman.com, written by Joel Benjamin (Opening Shortcuts, Anti-Sicilians Part 4-8). Also, Michael Goeller has an article series on what he calls the "Two Knights Sicilian" with various transpositions back to the Open Sicilian, on his Kenilworthian blog at http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/kenilworthian/.

Last, but not least, you could check out the Anti-Sicilians section here on Chesspublishing. There are at least 15 games to be found, mostly on 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3, annotated by Lane and Rowson.