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Yes, you should have more than one weapon with White as well, or at least varying approaches within the same opening. This is for practical as well as psychological reasons.

For example, suppose you are in a tournament and a major line in your repertoire as White is exposed as ineffective or maybe even unsound. Under those circumstances it is useful to have a fall back  prepared beforehand, and ideally it should be a line immune from theoretical flux, or as I like to say bullet proof. 

It is important to have these back ups prepared well in advance of your intended tournaments, because trying to do major repairs to one's repertoire during an event is stressful, time consuming and often unsuccessful.

On another note I would like to take up drkodos' point regarding inate talent and hard work. Talent is wonderful, but hard work is even better and can even compensate for the former to some degree.

You are right that pattern recognition needs to be hard wired into one's psyche to be able to find and execute combinations in ones games, but the good news is that this hardwiring if not inate can be cultivated with training.

The secret is that once you have consciously made the effort to memorise these patterns, is to forget about them and let them recede into ones subconscious until it is involunatrily trggered during a game as if by magic.

The most effective way I have found to improve pattern recognition skills, is to study them in their most rudimentary form since even the most complex combinations in the end can be broken down to these. Basically all combinations are simple, it is only their setting that may sometimes confuse and mislead.  A good grasp of combinational triggers, will go a long way to help you navigate the shifting landscape in your games.

It is important when doing the pattern recognition exercises to have any engines switched off, as this will defeat the purpose and effectiveness of them. Indeed you should attempt to analyse any position yourself, unassisted, and only then compare the results with that of your computer to measure how much you saw. 

In short everyone can cook, but it is neccessary in the beginning to practise and stick to the tried and proved recipes        

Toppy

Postscript: I should emphasise that one should concentrate on fully mastering simple recipe's first before attempting more complex one's.

Howdy I think I would choose the Sveshnikov but there is a ton of theory.  I think if you want to win then Sveshnikov is way to go as it is hard to win against the Marcozy bind.  I would forget the Nf6 sicilian if it was good more books and people would play it.  I think which is better is better question at 2500 level.  Both are good versus the anti sicilians.  I mean you get to play Nc6 versus closed and grand Prix - it is harder as a najdorf player.  true why not learn both?  It also gives more options such as 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 I think g6 may be best answer as you get to play d5 in one go often.   
best wishes,
Zatara

Just one opening is not practical, at least two is more ideal.

Sometimes a tournament situation may require one to play all out for a win while others a draw may suffice.

For example, suppose one chooses the accelerated dragon as your only defence to 1.e4, when it is well known that this it is almost impossible to play successfully for a win against the Maroczy Bind if white is not in an ambitious mood. Conversely if the Dragon is one's only defence to 1.e4 and a draw is enough to clinch tournament glory, then Black has a big problem.

Flexibility and various tournament situations is something one should consider carefully when building an opening repertoire that one can feel confident with.

Toppy

Chevalier wrote on 05/18/08 at 11:30:55:



I definitly agree but...but ...but which opening ?

Accelerated dragon or the Sveshnikov ? Or maybe Nimzowitsch sicilian.

I am sure that people in this forum is sick an tired of these kind of questions but for me its a problem.

I think that two defences to some openings is perfectly reasonable.

Toppy

Novosibirsk wrote on 05/17/08 at 13:35:30:


The accelerated dragon is low maintenance so why not play both.

Toppy

I am enormously ambivalent in my opening choice. I have one leg in the Sveshnikov and one leg in the Accelerated dragon.

I have to abandom one of them. How do we compare them ?

1. safety

1. Most reliable

3. easy to play

4. soundness.

5. Best winning chances

These factors and some others are important to me.

I  like Sveshnikov but have some inner doubts about its final correctness. Maybe I am wrong.

Is it moredifficult to win with the accelerated dragon than with the "svesh" ?

As I mentioned Iam very ambivalent over this and it really disturbed me.

Help!!