Nowadays when you play Sicilian you will not get Open as much. More people will play the annoying sidelines like 3. Ab5+, even to the highest level (as Magnus is example of). But if you happen to get Najdorf, not a big amount of White players will choose 6. Ag5 anyway. It is extremely large amount of knowledge to play 6. Ag5 properly as White. If you still happen to get 6. Ag5, 7....Dc7 is good line. You would get 6. Ag5 about the same amount of times that you get to play your desired Ruy López main line on move 9.

BobbyDigital80 wrote on 01/30/19 at 04:19:47:


It is off topic, but actually I contacted the Thinkers Publishing a whilst ago, they told me that a new edition of Kozul's Richter-Rauzer book available on 21th of February:

https://www.thinkerspublishing.com/expected-arrivals.html

7...Dc7 is essentially Najdorf version of the Kozul since Black gets the wrecked f-pawns but two bitchops. All the same ideas, such as playing ...h5 and sometimes castling 0-0-0 that are present in the Kozul Variation of the Richter-Rauzer can apply to 7...Dc7.

Most Black books on Najdorf have not recommended 7...Dc7 since that 2003 book by Emms. For example, Dokjnas book from last month recommends 6...Cbd7. Pavloviç's book The Modernised Najdorf recommends the Delayed Poisoned Pawn. These two are the topical choices for the elite. I bet that you would surprise White players even GMs if you played 7...Dc7 since they rarely will have played against it 

For as I know, that line is considered solid, similar to the Classical Richter-Rauzer, where some think that it is += for the structure, although I disagree with such assessments. 

It is rarely played nowadays at high level, because Black has so many options compared to last decade, including Delayed Poisoned Prawn and the 6...Cbd7 line which has masses of theory compared to even few years ago.

BobbyDigital80 wrote on 01/30/19 at 01:23:39:


Actually I wonder if this is why the line is not popular with high level. Those 2600+ all want to draw with Black, so any forced draw lines for Black (there are so many in the Poisoned Prawn) will attract them much more. They would much rather play the variations with high chances of draw over a variation with low chances of a quick draw and still complicated.

If you want to win and are accustomed to the Richter-Rauzer Kozul Variation (with 8...Ad7) I feel that it is a good line. White players definitely do not spend large amounts of hours preparing against it as they do against the Poisoned Prawn or 6...Cbd7.