So e4, c5, and from here, the Sicilian takes about three or four different turns.

Knight f3 followed by the move pawn to d4 is the open Sicilian, inviting a trade in the center and then turning into one of the many, many mainline Sicilians that exists.

After that, you have the closed Sicilian, which is essentially a setup where white does not play the move d4.

White can do that by playing knight c3 followed by g3 and bishop g2, or the grand prix attack with f4 and eventual bishop g2 or f4-bishop c4, or even some other tricky sidelines with bishop c4, bishop b5, and not moving the pawns.

And then there's the gambits, obviously.

There's the Smith-Mora gambit with d4 takes and then c3, not to mention the wing gambit and the delayed wing gambit with a3-b4.

And then there's basically the sidelines.

For example, the elephant Sicilian, which when white tries to play d4 and reinforce with a pawn, not to mention also b3, which I like to play and I recommend, and so on and so forth.

So how on earth does one deal with all this?

Well, first you need to pick what you want to play against the open Sicilian.

And in picking that, you may want to play something that has overlap with systems in the closed Sicilian and the other sidelines.

So for example, a Sicilian dragon, an accelerated dragon, is when you play knight c6, g6, and bishop g7.

You delay the movement of this knight.

So that might look something like knight f3, knight c6, but even here you need to deal with the Rosso Limo, which is a mainline Sicilian at this point and has been played by, you know, in the last World Championship match between Caruana and Magnus in a bunch of games.

But let's say d4, takes, takes, and then g6.

And you try to play bishop g7, you castle kingside, you use the open file, and the mainlines you have, you know, crazy attacking positions.

So if you play the dragon, the accelerated dragon, with knight c6, bishop g7, and so on against the open Sicilian, it might make it easier to play against the closed Sicilian because you already know what to do, right?

You kind of develop in the same way.

But a good Sicilian player, just like in the London system, for example, will adjust their weapons based on their opponent's setup.

One thing that I like to recommend against knight c3 is the very early a6, b5 system.

And this just basically tries to fight white right away.

You play a6, and if they try to just set up their pieces, you know, you start fighting with b4, e6, d5, and so on, and white never really gets comfortable.

This might help some of you closed Sicilian folks.

Now one of my personal favorites is e6 Sicilians.

I'm a big fan of e6 Sicilians, and that whole branch is like, you know, the Taimana, the Khan, as well as like the two knight Sicilians.

So for example, here there's also the knight f6, knight c3, bishop b4, the pin variation of the Sicilian.

I highly recommend, you know, for lower-rated players, give this a look, the pin variation.

And there's the two knights with knight c6.

Very tricky, very tactical system, a lot of queen b6 ideas.

In general, I would kind of push the more, you know, 1,500, 1,600-level players who are watching and lower for the tricky Sicilians.

You don't need to play the knight or if you don't need to play the Sveshnikov, the stuff that the top-level guys are playing, because you can't handle it.

I mean, that's unfortunately the truth, because there's too much memory, there's too much experience that comes with this, so play the trickier stuff.

You might really like it.

There's also the classical Sicilian, which instead of, you know, e6, you play like this, and then here there's the early e5 Kalashnikov, you know, the knight f6, e5 Sveshnikov, but there's also just knight f6, knight c3, d6, and this is known as the classical variation of the Sicilian, also very interesting.

But what I would recommend for the lower-rated viewers is pick something that has an overlap with something else.

The early g6 Sicilian positions, like the dragon, you can get against a lot of different things and then you can build your experience of where to put the pieces and how to attack in the center, how to attack on the queen side, and so on.

And the higher-rated players, I would recommend that you just, you know, you diversify your weapons because you can memorize stuff more, you've got a lot more experience with playing certain positions.

Now, the sidelines of the Sicilian are obviously a bit tricky.

So for example, the Aleppine Sicilian, you have to choose basically between two main lines, the knight f6 system, which is when you plop your knight in the center of the board, or the d5 system.

Now, I like the d5 system, but you've got to be comfortable with having a queen in the center.

And the only way you're going to learn this is getting some sort of book, some sort of video resources on YouTube, or, you know, buying an openings book, and watching some top-level players, looking at how a couple of really strong players excelled in these systems and with these positions from the black side.

One other thing that you can do, though, if you're a g6 player, is you can play g6 here and get a position that looks kind of like this with d5.

This is a pretty interesting strategic battle.

You try to play against kind of the, you know, potential target in the center that white would get.

And, you know, if you're about 1600, 1700 and lower at this level, playing a bit more positionally against an aggressive setup that white employs like this could be very good for you. b3 Sicilian, which is actually what I recommend in my openings course, and just I should say, in general, in this video, I'm not going to cover this Sicilian from the white side.

This is only for folks that want to play it with the black pieces.

If you want tips against the Sicilian, look at the 10-minute e4 guide.

But, you know, b3, g6 is actually still theoretically fine, and this position is known to be totally okay for black if you know what you're doing, but, you know, you need to build your experience there.

I think, honestly, that's like the best quick summary that I can give you.

And if we just go in further detail on the Sicilian defense and how the middle games might progress, a lot of it depends on which way white is going to castle.

So you'll note that in the Sicilian, especially if you employ like a dragon setup, for example, like g6, the most aggressive Sicilians are with queen d2 and long castles.

And then against these, you know, white is going to play f3, g4, h5 against you, and what you're going to have to do is create counterplay. f3 is always useful to prevent knight g4.

You're going to need to create counterplay on the c-file and in the center, so moves like d5.

If they prevent that, then d6, bishop d7, rook c8, or a6, b5, and so on and so forth.

But that's generally how you would play these kind of Fi and Keto positions with the bishop.

And if you decide to enter territory in the open Sicilian that is more theoretical and not setup-based like the dragon setups, like I said, my recommendation is to lean toward e6 positions.

If you go for the knight orf, I'm going to be completely honest with you, I can't help you.

And the reason why I can't help you is I will just give you a warning.

In this position, there are 15 different moves that white can play.

According to the database, they have all been played by grandmasters.

It's probably even more than 15, some just aren't that great.

So you've got to know what you're doing, is what I'm saying.

Now, if you're about 2000+, I would say try to play the knight orf if you want, but it's a lot easier to play more offbeat Sicilians because people don't study the offbeat Sicilians.

If you play a knight orf, you're playing into preparation.

You play a dragon, you might be playing into preparation.

If you play a con Sicilian like this, you might not, and queen c7, knight c6, and so on, and try to set up like a hedgehog position, you're not playing into a lot of prep.

You might be if you're playing somebody who's got a lot of experience, but a two-knight Sicilian with this setup and a lot of different dark-squared tactics in the center, I highly doubt you're going to be playing against somebody who's super, super theoretically prepared.

So these are all your options, okay?

I gave you some options how to play against a close Sicilian as well.

My personal favorite, the a6, b5 stuff.

The king's Indian attack with d3, g3, bishop g2, that does happen.

You might also get it, for example, in this format.

You just need to have a weapon against the king's Indian attack.

You might be in keto here and try to play like d5 with knight on e7, but this is really a sign of somebody who's not comfortable engaging in a crazy fight against a Sicilian player, and therefore will not enjoy if you begin kind of mobilizing in the center and creating problems right away.

I'm not going to lie.

I did not expect to get through a full Sicilian video in 10 minutes or less, but we're right about 9 minutes, and I'm pretty impressed because I feel as though I covered everything in as much detail as I could.

I gave you as many options against the open, the close, the sidelines as I could.

If you've got any questions on developing your Sicilian repertoire, please put them in the comments below.

I would be happy to answer them.

I would love to answer them.

I love getting involved when folks ask me questions, and as always, let me know your thoughts.

Like the video, share it with a Sicilian practitioner or a soon-to-be Sicilian practitioner, and the question I have for you today is, name a game that you play that's not chess.

You know, a video game, a board game, the game of life, if you will, and I'll see you in the next 10-minute opening video.