How to counter Sicilian Alapin variation as Black

The only thing that is a joke are, as usual, ThrillerFan's patzerish claims.

Strong players never say things like "The Alapin is a joke," or "The French Exchange is garbage." This is entirely the specialty of people whose life ambition is to be a big frog in a very small pond

"How to counter Sicilian Alapin variation as Black"
How to counter Anything in chess? you go to Lichess 

https://lichess.org/analysis#explorer

Insert the moves, and see what the best move is... (against the Alapin, it's 2...Nf6 - an Alekhine Opening style, but This time, the 3.e5 push is Forced)

Unless the best move totally isn't your taste (or other reasons). So you go to the Second best.

Technically, I am right. Which is also something.

Or you just see a video about it:

https://chessopenings.com/sicilian/?videoId=sicilian_c3

Minute 7:35 and forward, is about 2...Nf3

Old thread but I play 2...d5. It can lead to wide open games or closed, French positions. However, on 3. e5 d4 is what I'll normally play as I'm not a huge fan of the French. I've had pretty solid results with it in club play as well as online over the years.

Giri recommends d5 against the Alapin and McDonnell Attack. I’m sure he knows what he is talking about as well.

Try this sometime

Definitely

There are several different pawn structures in the 2..d5 lines, and as far as I'm aware White can not be forced into the IQP lines, even though they are just about playable for both sides. For example there are very sharp dxc5 lines.

d5 is nice....the op won with it..mating in 1.

Now you might object to it because the back and forth nature of the game...its true the move before mate, white was way ahead. But was all in the plans...black was just fooling around no doubt, and then execute white. So there you have it....d5 it is!

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet, but I use 2. e6 3. d5 to transpose to a French and I seem to have a pretty good score against the Alapin.

Evgeny Sveshnikov, Eduardas Rozentalis, Sergei Tiviakov, Duško Pavasovič, and Drazen Sermek are the names who are associated with "Alapin Sicilian". The "joke" comment of the opening is somewhat debatable and an insult to these masters.

In any opening, if a player knows what he is doing he will probably win the game. 

My main opening agaist 1.e4 is sicilian. I have lots of victories and defeats playing the against alapin. In my level of play alapin is no joke. I also play alapin as white. 

To answer the post, maybe accelerated dragon or dragon family is worth a try against alapin.

Enjoy the game of chess! And stop the hate. 

Carlsen has a plus score in the Alapin with the white pieces. His score with the black pieces on the other hand, is far from impressive.

Carlsen destroyed Nakamura in the c3 sicilian, as White in one of those online rapid tournaments. I believe it was last year. Carlsen agreed to a draw in a winning position, only because it was enough for him to win the tournament. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2044071

EDIT: the game was played earlier this year.

I like the setup with 2...d5 and 4...g6. It makes sense to fianchetto the bishop to put pressure on d4 and most White players aren't prepared against it because it is a rare sideline.

The system Nakamura played against Carlsen is inferior to the one suggested by pfren. I'd dare say it's borderline dubious.

I think the Kan Sicilian is a great way to actually play against the alapin because if the pawn captures the c5 pawn then it has a reinforcement

I prefer the french transpositions.

I feel the french is a good off weapon... you'll have to face it as white, and there are many transpositions into the french (or something similar to it) black can leverage in different openings... so there's alot of independent value in knowing the lines.