TN wrote on 01/21/11 at 03:28:11:


Thanks for the tip. That actually worked quite well tonight, when the Dragon came up in another blitz game. Without playing Bh6 first, I played Rdg1 to set it up, then g4 hxg4 h5, and only then brought over my bishop and queen, backed up by both rooks, for a successful mating attack against the black king.

So I've recently returned to chess after a break of a few months. I'm rated around 1700 USCF, and I've decided to finally give up on the Smith-Morra Gambit as my main weapon against the Sicilian, bite the bullet, and just dive into the Open Sicilian. 

But I'm also well aware that I shouldn't be spending too much time on opening study, because I really need to focus on just about everything else instead. So even though I bought "Dismantling the Sicilian" by Jesus de la Villa, I'm intending to just use it as a reference to look stuff up as it comes up in my games, not to sit and read it cover to cover.

I also know that I need to play more blitz, both to get better at playing in time trouble, and to practice various openings, despite the fact that I really, really, REALLY suck at blitz, and much prefer slow games. So this is my first game playing white against the Dragon, at a time control of 5 5 on ICC.

Any suggestions on how to play better would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.