♞Reflex Chess

Nine ways the game goes after 1...c5

More than a fifth of all serious chess starts 1.e4 c5, and almost none of it reaches the same middlegame twice.

The Sicilian is not one opening. White can decline the whole structure with the Alapin, the Closed or the Rossolimo, attack it directly with the Grand Prix, or pay a pawn to open it with the Smith-Morra. Black can pick a flexible setup like the Kan or the Taimanov, a fianchetto like the Accelerated Dragon, or the concrete, hole-accepting Sveshnikov. The resulting positions have almost nothing in common.

What they do share is the half-open c-file, the d5 square, and a permanent imbalance that makes quiet play by either side expensive. That is why the Sicilian generates more tactics per game than any other reply to 1.e4, and why the nine skills here are worth working through by system rather than as one pool.

Every motif in Sicilian Systems

Work through the section in order Nine ways the game goes after 1...c5. Anti-Sicilians first. Five graded levels per motif, four positions a lesson. Open the course

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