I have always played the Sicilian Defence, but as the years have passed I have forgotten quite a bit of theory on the opening. The Sicilian gives black winning chances as the imbalanced positions are often double edged. If you take a wrong step in the opening you often get crushed (or have an awful backward pawn to deal with) and this is what has been happening to me (a lot!) as I look to relearn the Sicilian Defence.
The variation I have been looking at over the past few days is the Najdorf variation. This is a very popular line that can lead to some crazy positions.
Check out the position between Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave from their most recent match up in the Sinquefield Cup.
I have been trying to play this opening in all of my blitz games and so this month I have played 9 games in the Najdorf variation. I won 3, drew 1 and lost 5. Clearly there is still a bit of learning to do!
Here is a game that given more time I may have won. It was a fun game though and the best example of the classic queenside attack with b5 to b4.