Choice of sicilian variation

So, i played accelerated dragon but i feel that it is causing too many exchanges and there are bigger chances of draw, which i dont like, coz it is not main reason of playing sicilian of course:)

now i am searching another variation of sicilian, dragon seems too risky for me, 1 bad move and game over. I am thinking about 2 variations, najdorf and pelikan.

In pelikan 1 big advantage is that if white doesn't move knight to b5, i play Bb4 and pressure on e4 pawn is so big that i would already prefer black position, but i don't know if main line is suitable for me

However, i suppose that main lines of najdorf are ok for me, but i wonder if less known variations would give me easy chance to exploit them like Bb4 in pelikan does. The point is that people on my level(about 1500) won't play main lines anyway, so it is quite important factor. If answer is yes i will definitely choice najdorf, if not decision will be a bit harder:)

At your level, piece exchanges should hardly give bigger chances of a draw. Could you give an example game? Perhaps you should just improve your endgame a little and win them all.

I think the Dragon is much better for you than the Najdorf. The Dragon is more logical, pieces go on the same squares in different lines, and Black's attack on the queenside is very natural. The Najdorf has no logic, just moves that work or don't work not because of some general principle, but because of pages of analysis. Besides, "1 bad move and game over" is of course only true in main lines, but in that case, it's more so in the Najdorf.

If you spend three years learning the Najdorf, you know a bit of the Najdorf. If you spend three years learning other openings, you know a bit more about chess :-)

I tend to belive that in the main lines of the Najdorf white holds a slight advantage. Also the Najdorf is a very complex opening with many variations, and alot of therory is needed to be learned inorder to play it well.

If I play the sicilian, I almost allways play the Pelikan as it is much easyer (for me) to understand, and black has good play against white players who don't know what they are doing.

6...Bb4 in the Pelikan is bad because of 7.Nd6+ craping blacks position. The main line 6...d6 is much better.

My advice to you is to learn the main lines in the Pelikan, and play the Sveshnikov variation.

I have played Sicilian a lot myself with the black pieces, but it is many years ago that I studied the main lines, so I usually don't remember which names the main lines have, except that the Dragon is about playing g6 and Bg7 and I play that a lot. So I feel familiar with that. Then I leave the rest to my intuition and playing skills. Sometimes I don't play g6 and Bg7 because I want a variation and other challenges, but I don't know or remember the name of the variation I am playing then. I probably often don't follow the main lines in the other variations because I haven't looked at them for quite a while. As you can see on my profile my rating on this site is 2058 at the moment, but that will change of course, but thus you can see that even higher rated players might not play the main lines. Well, maybe I do, I just don't pay much attention to whether they are main lines or not.

If the players on your level don't follow the main lines anyway then I think that a good suggestion would be to simply try the different variations out. Try one variation in several games, see what happens, and let your moves depend on what your opponent does, then another variation in several games etc.

I took a look at wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Defence

and found out that the one you call Pelikan is also called "Sveshnikov Variation":

1. e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5

and also found out which variation is the Najdorf, so I had a little brush up on the variations inspired by your post.

Good luck with your games.

I know i meant Bb4 after other knight retreat like nf3:)

To the dragon, i have ward's book but he recommends system to which i know kind of refutation, i have also easy guide to the dragon but it covers all variations and it's harder to learn, of course in dragon i will need to know some theory:)

Coming to pelikan, i dont know if i cant stand this double f pawn in main line:)

Illogic of najdorf worries me, so i am confused now

Practically, i should take sth like French or Scandinavian, but i am overambitious i suppose:)

Or try 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6. None of your opponents will know the theory, so you won't have to either :-)

The Pelikan/Sveshnikov is a great winning try for black. I have played it for years and often play both sides of it. It creates a huge imbalance in the opening which means there wont be a lot of draws ! Whites better structure against blacks bishops. I have won, and lost, some important games in this line and had very few draws. More importantly, I always enjoy the games in this line. I play 2 lines in the sicilian in otb games, the pelikan and the classic sicilian but I play pelikan when I must win.

Actually that looks exciting to me, because the position is very un-even in the way that the material is so different on the two sides although there is a material balance. An un-even position like that inspires to a great game. As a compensation for the double pawn black has the g-file for his rook, and white has a knight on the edge on a3. Black also has the pair of bishops but whether that matters depends on how open the position gets, and since black's king is in the middle of the board black might not want to open the position too much. Apart from a knight on a3 white's position seems rather healthy and d5 is a very good place for a knight. There is opportunity for excitement.

I found two interesting games with the Pelikan, a black win and a white win:

Alexey Shirov vs Garry Kasparov:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1250158

Alexey Shirov vs Joel Lautier:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1295024

Here are more Sicilian games:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1004359

What about playing Caro-Kann for a change? I love that opening myself and I have played it even more than I have played Sicilian. Caro-Kann is a great "vacation" from the Sicilian types of games I would say. If Sicilian gets too boring it is a great idea to play something completely different and Caro-Kann is very different, but I admit that also French and Scandinavian are different.

 Actually the Najdorf has a lot of logic: Black plays a6 and b5(at some point) to start a queenside attack, Bb7 to take the long diagonal, Nd7 so it does not block the Bishop...

Maybe before saying a move (or a whole opening!!) has no logic you should play it regulary. Its probable that you just don't get the Logic because you prefer another defence 

I spend this weekend watching Kasparov's Najdorf DVDs, and he says it time and again. There is no logic, no general rules. In some variations a perfectly logical looking move works, in others it doesn't, and the reason why is some detail in the variations, not a general rule.

Of course, perhaps that's colored too much by Kasparov's extremely concrete variation-based style of analysis, but it certainly seems that way to me.

Take the Goteborg variation. After 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 h6

Black wants to put his f6 knight on e5, and to do that tries to remove White's f4 pawn with ...h6 and ...g5. White has a dangerous sacrifice, but the knight on e5 should be enough, and if White wants to exchange it with Bh4-g3, Black can play the other knight to c6 or d7, covering the knight on e5. Or so Najdorf and two of his countrymen thought at the 1955 Interzonal, when they each had Black against Soviet Grandmasters.

9.Bh4 g5 10.fxg5 Nfd7 11.Nxe6! fxe6 12.Qh5+ Kf8 13.Bb5!! And because of this move, only because this move is available, suddenly Black's plan doesn't work -- he can't bring a knight to c6 or d7 after ...Ne5 Bg3, because White will just take it. And there is no time for axb5, because Rf1+ is coming.

Or so it was thought for three years, until in 1958 in the last round of the Interzonal then, Bobby Fischer needed to make a draw as Black, and chose this variation! He came up with 13...Rh7!! and managed to make a draw - because the variation did just work out.

So instead of logical moves, everything hinges on concrete analysis.

I have played the Accelerated Dragon for years and I think it is a great line as it is more them based than pure memorization--it is different than the "regular" dragon" which is a lot like the Najdorf in that ones mall mistake or move transposition you will lose the game--with the Accelerated Dragon this usually is not the case. I played the Sveshnikov for about three years and have friends that play it and are titled players. I gave it up because in some lines White gets a passed a pawn early and just pushes it and Black is helpless. Also there is more memorization since White has lots of alternatives. Again one small mistake for Black can be devastating as he has a bad pawn structure--my general them is unless you are 2000 or above do not spend that much time on openings but play ones where you understand the positions and do not require massive memorization or contanstly worrying about the latest "refuation"  

So maybe i shouldn't give up accelerated dragon at all :)

I don't know your playing strength but I would not give up the Accelerated Dragon--if there is a line that is bother you look up a few games to better understand the themes. Learning a new opening is very tough as pawn structures, tactical themes and trends all take a long time to learn. I played the 7...Qa5 line which I like more than 7...0-0--early exchanges on ...c6 took some time but I am OK with those as well--I have just given up this line in some correspondence events (where people over 2400 and the use of computers) as it was too tough--am now experimenting with the Pirc and even the Black side of the Ruy Lopez but only in postal play where I can look up games and use books

Iam about 1500 and i play the line with 0-0 and a5 to play d5, but often white plays sth like yugoslav attack with 0-0-0, and although i can play d5 in 1 go and i have tempo up compared to normal dragon, there are massive exchanges then he plays bd4 and bishops are gone as well, kinda drawish position

I am not sure about the exact line you are playing but there is a major difference between this and the Yugoslav in the main Dragon--in the lines you are mentioning Black has ...e5 attacking the B on d4 with play--also the R's can go to b8 and c8 where both files are open and White King is exposed--I am going to try and load a game I played a while ago (not sure if it is on this site) where I crushed someone in this line--here goes--I am not sure if my comments made it into the game as I am new at this--enjoy

The Sveshnikov (Pelikan) is probably the easiest variation to learn because there aren't very many pawn structures or plans to memorize. Most of the latest theory leads to the same position so you can play on autopilot for the first 15-20 moves and then follow through with your plan. If I didn't play the french I'd probably take up the Svesh.

Yes this is that variation only difference is that white plays 9 0-0-0, but i am not expert on this variation so maybe massive exchanges including queens was my fault:)

Anyway thx for your advice, pelikan and najdorf are very interesting openings but like some of you said they are too theoretical for me, i should't spend so much time on openings indeed

I am sorry ericmittens but I strongly disagree with your comments on the Sveshnikov. It is a great line for Black but requires lots of work--The lines where White sacs  on b5 is hard for Black to play. The "hole" on d5 is tricky later in the game as well. Also there are various move order subtleties that require Black to really understand what he doing 

Well sure, but compared to other sicilians the number of standard positions in the Sveshnikov is much smaller. You basically have the Bg5 pawn structure and the Nd5 pawn structure. The strategic ideas are "control of d5" and "push f5 at the right moment and start kingside play."

Of course there are lots of forcing tactical lines and sharp variations (like in every sicilian) but the diversity of ideas to become familiar with is far reduced. There's even a repertoire book (a really good repertoire book that I recommend to anyone) on the Sveshnikov called "the easiest sicilian"!

http://www.amazon.com/Easiest-Sicilian-GM-Kolev/dp/9548782669

http://www.jeremysilman.com/chess_gst_wrtrs/The_Easiest_Sicilian.html