I can add my experience as a Poisoned Pawn player since 1980.

1) The number of draws with the Poisoned Pawn is very high in any case.  Honestly it's the most probable result.  But White task is very difficult and my record with Black is excellent since I faced very few defeats.

2) The forced draw with the line 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.f5 Nc6 11.fxe6 fxe6 12.Nxc6 bxN 13.Be2 Be7 14.0-0 0-0 15.Rb3 Qc5+ 16.Be3 Qe5  has already happened to me twice in the last twelve months by in ICCF games.  In one case my opponent was a ICCF GM but one with a poor ELO (so the draw increased his ELO); in the second case my opponent had got an ELO higher than mine.

3) As a subscriber of Open Sicilian I recently put the question to GM Tony Kosten on whether there a was a way to avoid a draw after White's 13.Be2 but he practically answered that there is no way unless Black takes the risk to play an inferior variation.

4) A draw with Black is not bad.  If you need a win you simply have to play differently before., maybe 8...Nc6 as already mentioned in some previous posts.  

Just thought i'd post the fact that najditch beat short with the 8........Nc6 system to win in Baku in the last round- so there is a fully playable alternative.

I'd just like to say that Georgiev's book is truly great and I salute him for being the first author to  recommend the best system against Bg5.

I feel that a lot of nonsense is being written in relation to forced draws since there are many other lines like this in other openings.

Photophore - Have you seen 'The Sharpest Sicilian'?  If not, then I would highly advise taking a look.  It recommends the Poisoned Pawn and includes analysis of the line after 10 e5 that appeared in Motylev - Anand and Anand - Van Wely from this years' Corus tournament.

The book does assume knowledge of the 'less critical lines', bit I've found that filling in the gaps with Nunn does the job.

Not only that, but the latest NIC yearbook concurs with your assessment of The PP, by calling an article on 10 e5 , 'Life after death!'

It is certainly whites' most dangerous new attempt for many a year as far as I can see.

I fully understand your plight Willempie.  I am not only a Najdorf player, but a mainline sicilian player as white and I find the latter a thankless task!

As mentioned in another thread, I usually play 6 Bg5 e6 7 f4 Qc7, but recently in a friendly match I decided to give The PP a whirl and got the other 'drawing line' after 10 f5, namely 13 e5 dxe5 14 Bxf6 gxf6 15 Ne4 Qxa2! as in Vallejo Pons - Kasparov, Moscow 2004.

What I found incredible was that for most of my teenage years, even the prospect of looking at the PP scared me and yet what the authors state in 'The Sharpest Sicilian' came very true for me a few weeks ago.  I simply memorised the main line, then used Nunns' 1995 work to fill in the gaps and got a comfortable draw, where I only used 7 minutes to my opponents 1 hour and 3 minutes.  Even worse was that 5 minutes was spent by me just double checking the line at move 19 because I wasn't feeling too well and didn't fully trust my memory!

Given that I now play 6 Bg5 as white too, I am convinced that, like Nunn, 9 Nb3 must be the way forward, indeed there seem to have been quite a few new ideas published in recent NIC yearbooks and saturation seems a long way off at the moment.

Only the Polu, mainline, 7...Nbd7, 7...Nc6 and 7...Qc7 to cover as well!

Semko wrote on 05/10/07 at 09:56:21:


Well, there is the theoretical possibility of facing a player with 200 ELO points less in the last round, who will be satisfied with the draw, while you need a win for a price .... It happened to me once. I received a draw proposal every 3 moves or so. Only my opponent was a talented junior (12 years old or so) with an ELO deficient of less than 100 points.
Moreover he played 1.d4.  

Hmm, I wonder if there are players out there that deliberately plot out forced draws in the main lines as White against all opposition.  Don't they play the c3 sicilian? 

My question was about studying for hours and let the opponent an easy draw if he wants to.
Maybe the poisoned pawn is a good system against 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 but not if we badly need to win ... or you have ideas to avoid this draw ?
7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.f5 Nc6 11.fxe6 fxe6 12.Nxc6 bxN 13.Be2 Be7 14.0-0 0-0 15.Rb3 Qc5+ 16.Be3 Qe5 17.Bd4 Qa5 18.Bb6 1/2-1/2