Ave! Sicilians and Sicilian lovers.
Long story short I have been thinking the past few days how to combat various e6 Sicilians as white. In the standard position after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 there are some rare moves I decided to check and I must say there is one where it did not seem obvious what to play with white. So if anyone here has any idea...
The move is
4...Be7 It may not look like a great move but it can't exactly be bad either. Generally the e7 square is a tried and tested placement for the dark squared bishop in the Sicilian. Also. Although at first glance it doesn't look overly purposeful to put a bishop there this early it still acts as a developing move and there is relatively little white can do to disturb black's development. This means other stuff will get out eventually.
Can white somehow benefit strategically from black choosing to develop his bishop so early then? A general lack of interest for playing like this would perhaps indicate this. In terms of direct punishment there obviously isn't any. Black is very solid and white doesn't have enough pieces out to create meaningful threats. Instead a possible plan would be to go for a bind with c4 and claim this may lead to eventual strategic success. While it may not be thrilling positions for black it does seem like there might be some point to having developed the bishop instead of having done something less obviously useful. A third way of handling the situation would be to simply go 5.Nc3, let black get on with his setup and try to transpose into a position where having played and early Be7 is not great.
I'll list some attempts and relay some thoughts:
A) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Be7 5.Nb5
Is probably not so dangerous.
5...d6 6.c4 What else? White risked being driven back with a6. Now the position could easily transpose into a Taimanov with Nb5 & c4 if black goes Nc6.
6...Nf6 7.N1c3 0-0 8.Be2 a6 9.Nd4 b6!? Or 9...Nc6 with a Taimanov position. In both cases I wouldn't think white has much of an advantage against precise play from black.
Against pawn moves like 4...d6 and 4...a6 (Kan) white can go for 5.c4 setups. Here, since Be7 is probably more useful than either of those pawn moves I think black can consider trying to play for a breakout. For example:
B) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Be7 5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 0-0 6...Nc6 7.Bf4 Bb4!? 8.Nxc6 bxc6 9.Bd3 d6 10.e5 dxe5 11.Bxe5 Nd7 Should not be bad either, although maybe white can play better.
7.Be2 7.e5!? Ne8 8.Be2 d6 9.exd6 Nxd6 10.Bf4 Nc6 11.Nxc6!? bxc6 12.0-0 Nf5 13.Bd3 May be a some kind of pull for white.
7...Nc6 8.0-0 d5!? 9.exd5 exd5 10.Be3 dxc4 11.Bxc4 White is more active but black seems OK.
White can also just develop.
C) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Be7 5.Nc3 And now it looks like black has two moves.
5...a6 5...d6 May be safer even if you do risk ending up in a Keres-attack position. If 6.g4, which looks like an idea possibly you could try something like 6...h6 7.Be3 Nc6 and it looks like some central counterplay at least and no immediate kingside pressure for white.
6.Be3 6.g4 b5 7.Bg2 Bb7 8.a3 Nc6 doesn't look so bad for black.
6.Qg4 Bf6!? 7.Be3 Nc6 8.0-0-0!? Nge7 May well be a little bit better for white, although black's piece placements still make some amount of sense to me.
6.Qf3!?
6...d6 7.Qf3 Nc6 I can't think of many good ways to avoid this sadly.
8.Nxc6 bxc6 9.Qg3 Nf6 10.0-0-0 With a normal Taimanov position I'm fairly sure I've seen coverage of earlier.
And well that is that. Perhaps especially if the Scheveningen position after 5.Nc3 d6 6.g4 is ok would be interesting to find out. Anyone has some thoughts?
Regards.
CbT