How to learn the Sicilian Najdorf as thoroughly as possible?

@Pulpofeira

Fort Knox occurs after 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2/Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bd7. Black's next move is Bc6 and he plans to get rid of the bad bishop for one of the knights and play it essentially like a Caro-Kann. It's fairly solid but not considered as good as the mainline Rubinstein because black has to surrender both the center and the bishop pair.

Oh, thanks. No, I play the mainline.

GM de Firmian said once Najdorf fans consider the variation the path to ultimate truth in chess, the opening to the perfect game, if that thing exist. But how could the perfect game start with 1. e4?? (just kidding). I think it could be a Semi-Slav, what also requires a huge amount of study. IMHO the proper study of such variations must be preceded by a vast experience.

If i were you, I would stick with opening principles for now.

I actually disagree with a lot of people. Slowly learning the theory of an opening like the najdorf CAN be very good.

What OP must realise if this is to work is that openings are long term projects. You should aim to slowly assimilate information about the opening over a couple of years, rather than mass working on it in one go.

I suggest after each one of your games entering the sicilian that you go to a database/book or both and see where you or your opponent deviated, and briefly try to understand the plans for both sides from the position that occured. This method takes only 5-10 minutes post game, improves your knowledge of theory, AND maks your knowledge of theory conform to the replies that are most played against you, rather than those that are most played at GM level.

Hi dear friend i don't recommend you any book about the Najdorf  because authors are not entirely honest ... Here i wrote a little introduction about this great defense http://www.chess.com/blog/JRgascon/introduction-to-najdorf-sicilian ... You can learn it by yourself by watching Fischer's games or with somebody's help...

Thank you. This is very helpful!

Become one with the chess goddess. Other than locking yourself in a room with only a chess board for 20 hours a day -- this is the only way.

Everyman Chess has a good book that I used before...
Starting out: Sicilian Najdorf

Then start playing it, get that game analyzed by people who play the najdorf, compare with sample games (e.g. from chessgames.com)

That's it!

And how much of that is a self-fulfilling prophecy passed down by people like de Firmian? Amateurs running around learning Najdorf openings 28 moves deep because they heard it was a daring opening when a well-prepared 2. Nc3 would likely hurt them much more. 

This is an interesting thought. If you are below GM level you are likely playing losing moves in the Najdorf.

That said he also famously stated that any opening with a name is playable against even weak masters.

In my opinion below a certain level (say NM) white obtains a moster of an advantage just by playing the open sicilain with either the Bg5 line or the english attack. I feel that even most experts do not have the ability to defend whites monster attack.

Watch Sam Shankland's Najdorf series in chess.com he's a 2660 Fide GM and knows what he's talking about. I learned more from those videos than any silly videos on YouTube on the opening.

@pilateblue so, how's it going with the Najdorf 16 months later?

I just wrote a basic primer for learning the Najdorf. It focuses on the two most important things you should know first. The pawn structure and the "why" behind the first few moves and how to evaluate the position as you go so you can play based on a plan as opposed to just memorizing lines. Then as you go I would suggest you find some really good games by top Najdorf players and do the evaluation planning method for their moves.

https://www.chess.com/blog/JerkyRobot/primer-for-the-najdorf

All too predictably, I'm afraid - OP hasn't been active for over a year now.

The Najdorf Sicilian? Not a great choice for someone seeking to build an opening repertoire from scratch.

who you think yourself to dictate who to learn what? as*****

Do you really need step 2?

I agree the Najdorf is a little too much.  I recently looked at the Sicilian and decided not to use the Najdorf, in part because of the large number of variations whose move order you need to follow carefully.

Instead, I chose the Safest Sicilian, the Taimanov (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6) because the typical moves lead to the position after 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nc6 5 Nc3 Qc7 and even after the English Attack, 6 Be3, Black is solid and does not have to memorize a lot of variations and the move order is often not critical.

Another one that's safe for someone who doesn't want to memorize lots of variations, that I've been looking at, is the Siclian Kan. It's related to the Taimanov (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 a6)

Note that after Delchev and Semkov wrote the book The Safest Sicilian about the Taimanov, Georgiev and Kolev wrote a book in the same series, The Sharpest Sicilian about the Najdorf and this excerpt from the introduction gives you an idea of how complex it is:

Here's my last Sicilian Taimanov.  Look at the two chess.com index pics below the board - the inaccuracies and mistakes did not result in bad positions - and the Lucas Chess/Stockfish 10/20 ply move analysis that follows them and you can see it wasn't hard for me to find good moves with the Taimanov:

Has PilateBlue been here since 2015?