Choice of sicilian variation

I recommend you get a copy of John Emm's Starting Out: The Sicilian and go through the various lines.  The sample games are very helpful to give you the "feel" of each variation.

I have played the classical dragon for about 7 years. I have more good results than bad in tournaments I was able to play it. But I think the success was because I have weaker opponents. I have both Ward's book on the opening and I reckoned they are excellent. Unfortunately as I become stronger I decided to abandoned the classical dragon because it is not giving me consistent good results, I wanted to further minimize draws and defeats when I play against 1.e4 - and with classical dragon the control on the board to steer into preferred position is less. Aided by Fritz I was able to conclude that it is an opening not suited to my goal. I resorted to Accelerated Dragon, though games will not be as expectacular, atleast its got better handling of situations where black's position is safer.

Najdorf? Every strong players now know how to play against it. So why bother to be a beginner in that field?

Pelikan/Sveshnikov does not appeal to me. First, it is the only Sicilian where it surrenders a good endgame pawn structure. Every strong players are also well prepared to meet it. So why start building that house when its already raining and flooding? To play this opening you must be a very good attacking player, otherwise your initiatives will just steam-out and your clock always running out of time OTB.

I am currently looking at Sicilian Taimanov. So far I believe this is the safest Sicilan.

I play the Taimanov as a tranpositional tool when I know my opponent wants to play a boring anti-french (you can always tell when they play 1.e4 e6 2.Nf3?).

I bought "the safest sicilian" by Delchev and Semkov and I really like it.

    The Sicilian Defense, Boleslavsky Variation is solid.

if you want a strong attacking position i believe that the sicilian is the way to go.  Depending on your style of play you need to choose a variation.  As some have said this opening has a lot and i mean a lot of theory. Choose one that fits you like a glove and dont just choose one.  I personally know 7 variations that flow from the positions that usually arise.  They are the Najodrf, Najodrf Poisoned Pawn, Hyper Dragon, Accelerated Dragon, Schiviengn, Taiminov and the Chameoleon.  These are not spelled right because its late and i cant spell but this is what i know.  If you want to get good at them then you need to learn them and use them frequently. 

Good luck in you games with the Sicilian

I play the dragon, seems a very easy variation of the Sicilian... I should really look at a few other variations...the French is occupying me, however... mabye you should deviate from the Sicilian and try something new?

I play the Najdorf and I think it is a good choice. It is true that in some variations like 6.Bg5 and the english attack one innacurate move can be fatal, but often that applies to white aswell and therefore alot of white players avoid the sharp lines because they don't want to learn all that theory. I find though in the lines where white plays 6.Be2, 6.f4, and even 6.Bc4, a good understanding of the position will serve you better than memorizing variations, atleast over the board at club level anyway. But still if you plan to play the sharper sicilians (Najdorf, Dragon, Sveshnikoff etc) from either side than you must be prepared to spend alot of time learning the critical variations. The accelerated dragon, the Taimanov, and the Kan seem like less theoretical and safer variations to me, but ofcourse they can still be sharp like all sicilians.

You cite 6.Bg5 as a troubling, or sharp move for a sicilian.  I respectfully disagree.  This is simply a path that you go to the poisoned pawn variation that will allow you some breathing room.  This is not a matter of life or death but makes you think and if you dont have the background in the opening you will miss this. The other thing that you need to think about is psychology and tricking people outside their repitoire so that you can control the direction of the game

Thx for your answers, i will just continue playing accelerated dragon, i have holes in repertuare in other openings such as french and caro-kann and this is where i will have to work for a little while.

I truely tend to distrust the Sicilian Dragon variation. There are far too many ways to pull off a large Kingside attack against Black.

I like to play the Kalashnikov Variation or the Classical Variation as Black. As White, I believe that my side also has good fighting chances and I don't jump right into an "Anti-Sicilian line" simply because I'm afraid of the defense. The Yugoslav Attack and most Open Sicilian lines are what I use as White.

Try Hyper Accelerated Dragon.

For explanation, see my blog through my profile.