I totally agree with you that Black is objectively fine. 
The line you give is very similar to what I used to play. After, let's say, 10.e5 Nfd7 11.Be3 b4 Black has indeed a good French structure and is probably a little better.
You just have to be aware that you are really playing a French here and not a Sicilian. In my games (only blitz) White would eventually play d4 and Bc2 and get some attacking chances on the kingside. But you are right, Black should be faster on the queenside.

There is a difference between this setup and the reversed Leningrad Dutch you mention. The light squared bishop is not on g2 but on the b1-h7-diagonal and is pointing towards black's king.

However, my point is that even if this 2.Bc4 line doesn't give White anything from a theoretical point of view, it is still a game. I wouldn't play 2.Bc4 and I am looking on this from the Black side, but White is not necessarily worse and this line is not so ridiculous.

I faced 1.e4 c5 2.Bc4 e6 3.Qe2 in some blitz games and found it not so easy to play against.
White plays with f4, d3, c3, etc. The bishop goes to b3 and later c2, if Black pushes with d5. Looks like some kind of mixture between Grand Prix Attack and Big Clamp (or even French Chigorin) with the bishop outside the pawn chain.
Maybe not so silly ...

chk wrote on 12/16/09 at 18:28:55:


There is a useful distinction to be made not only between OTB chess and correspondence chess, but between OTB play and preparation. 

When faced with some unusual line in an over the board game, naturally the priorities have to be practical ones. At today's generally faster time limits it can be very risky to adopt the Geller approach of investing a lot of time to find the most strategically logical and tactically precise responses; it makes more sense to play reasonable moves and head for familar structures, and then do do some research at home later.

As to preparation, I suggest that De La Villa's approach (pretty much echoing Shereshevsky in The Soviet Chess Conveyer) makes a lot of sense:

prepare main lines against main lines;
prepare sound side lines against sound side lines;
prepare refutations against unsound lines.

1 e4 c5 2 Bc4 reveals White's hand rather early and Black should have no problem equalizing. After Black plays 2...e6, instead of pursuing his birthright -the initiative - White has to focus on preventing Black from exploiting the position of the bishop by ...d5 or ...b5. It is little use for White to try to transpose to an Open Sicilian with 3 Nf3; White would not normally play an early Bc4 against the Kan/Paulsen/Taimanov; it makes a lot of difference that Black has not played (and probably will not play) an early ...d6.

1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 Bc4 is a lot better and indeed is a respectable form of Anti-Sicilian that has been played occasionally, with some success,  by many GMs, including Adams, Morozevich, Svidler and Benjamin. Black is OK if he knows what he is doing, but so is White, who can generally reach a sound and easy-to-play Ruy Lopez set-up with c3, d3, Bb3, 0-0 in some order. It can also be viewed as a sort of Kopek system with the white bishop retreating c4-b3 rather than d3-c2.

TonyRo wrote on 12/15/09 at 14:35:20:


Sorry , I did not see this post. Are there somethinng wrong with d5 since most of my opponnets plays Nc3?  

tbh, that made me laugh! 

@Markovich: yes, I have noticed in the past that we share a different philosophy re opening repertoires. I am minimalistic, practical etc. Of course that has to do a lot with our difference in strength (markovich>chk, but maybe markovich=chk on an inspired day ) and also you playing a lot of correspondence. I am an OTB 'beast'.. so I cut a lot of corners.

I gave my comment above, since I believe there are many chess friends here that share my philosophy in opening repertoires. Also the Whites may be willing to know what most Black players will be prepared to answer to the various early-Bc4 lines..

Funny, I don't find a post by "tbh."  My own frame of mind is that a sub-optimal move by the opponent should always be exploited, even if this means spurning a transposition into a variation that one feels at home in.

There's a couple of tricks. The move order 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 c3 Nf6 4 Bc4 is more likely to set them up though (because of 2 .. e6). The first point is that taking on e4 is unclear since the pawn can be regained by Qa4, Bxf7+ and Qxe4. The second is that after the plausible 4 .. Nc6 5 Qe2 Bg4 6 h3 Bh5 7 g4 Bg6 8 g5, the reply 8 .. Nxe4 loses a piece to 9 Bd5 because the Knight is trapped. Rybka though reckons it's nearly equal after 9 .. Nxf2 despite the piece.

Apropos of 2.Bc4, I've been playing some Scheveningen games with 2...e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6.  What to do after 3.Nc3 is a problem, since for example, 3...Nc6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 e6 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 and I have to face a Sozin/Velimirovic, which I don't have to do via my preferred move order (where my b8 knight hangs back and, in case of Bc4-Bb3, comes out on a6).  

So instead of 3...Nc6 I would prefer 3...d6 when White has, among other moves, 4.Bc4 which perhaps is a little stronger with Black's d-pawn committed to d6, e.g. 4...a6 5.a4 and it's a mess.  I don't suppose that Black has much to worry about, but on the other hand his game doesn't look that inspiring to me.

If White wants to play in this manner, he should play 2.Nf3 first, and then meet 2...d6 with 3.Bc4, so that Black cannot play ...d5 in one turn. This doesn't change the overall evaluation of the line, but at least forces Black to find a few good moves to secure equality. I can't remember the equaliser exactly, but I recall that Black plays ...Nf6/...e6/...Nc6/...Be7/...0-0/...d5 in some order, perhaps with ...a6 thrown in.

I have faced this 2.Bc4 line in some correspondence games.

May be used as a surprise weapon, but I use to play 2... e6 in order to play normal black setup (sometimes the game finally follows the Schevenigen Sicilian).

Do not be afraid of 2.Bc4, but the bishop at c4 square is a useful piece in many Open Sicilian Variations.

The reversed Sicilian has a different philosophy than the proper one, so I wouldn't necessarily try to compare them.

On 1. e4 c5 2. Bc4 e6 and you have a normal Sicilian where I think Black will quickly equalise in all possible variations. I think we had some discussion about this system some time ago (you can check that through the 'search' function)..