Originally posted by exigentskyI believe that was back in 1995 and we are more knowledgable now. I got the book in front of me 🙂
Originally posted by Gambitzoid
[b]The dragon is considered refuted...
Oh come on, who are you to say the Dragon is refuted? There are many GMs that play the Dragon to this day. See some games by Sergey Kudrin, Kiril Georgiev, Vasik Rajlich and Gennady Sosonko before claiming that the Dragon is refuted. Would a player like Kasparov play a r ...[text shortened]... ely tactical and necessitates a good deal of research, but it is nowhere near to being refuted.[/b]
On the Dragon:
Nowadays it has supporters at every level of chess and in 1995 it received an ultimate seal of approval when Garry Kasparov utilised it with great success in his world championship match with Vishy Anand.
I don't think it is refuted but John Fed, had several lectures on it on chess.fm and said it has fallen on troubled times and a lot of dragon players had given up on it. That's the last I heard about it. Of course, the lectures are not available anymore so I can't view them again, but I believe the problem he mentioned was 9.0-0-0.
Originally posted by RahimK9. ... Nxd4 has worked for me. It opens up the c file for a direct assault on white's king (via Rc8 or Qc7 or both). White has the same plans against black's king (h4 -> h5 -> h6 supported by g4 and eventually a Nd5 invasion).
I believe that was back in 1995 and we are more knowledgable now. I got the book in front of me 🙂
On the Dragon:
Nowadays it has supporters at every level of chess and in 1995 it received an ultimate seal of approval when Garry Kasparov utilised it with great success in his world championship match with Vishy Anand.
I don't think it is refuted bu ...[text shortened]... lable anymore so I can't view them again, but I believe the problem he mentioned was 9.0-0-0.
While the line is dangerous for black as a novelty could be uncorked at an inopportune moment the same can be said for white.
Originally posted by RahimKKasparov was only one example, all the others were active players over 2500 using the Dragon regularly.
I believe that was back in 1995 and we are more knowledgable now. I got the book in front of me 🙂
On the Dragon:
Nowadays it has supporters at every level of chess and in 1995 it received an ultimate seal of approval when Garry Kasparov utilised it with great success in his world championship match with Vishy Anand.
I don't think it is refuted bu ...[text shortened]... lable anymore so I can't view them again, but I believe the problem he mentioned was 9.0-0-0.
Originally posted by exigentskyI don't get your point.
Kasparov was only one example, all the others were active players over 2500 using the Dragon regularly.
Kasp was the top player and used it give it the "ultimate" seal of approval.
Forget everyone esle. I know other Gm's play it as well. I was just saying that it was good enough for Kasp back in 95 as was the book.
Originally posted by XanthosNZInteresting.
9. ... Nxd4 has worked for me. It opens up the c file for a direct assault on white's king (via Rc8 or Qc7 or both). White has the same plans against black's king (h4 -> h5 -> h6 supported by g4 and eventually a Nd5 invasion).
While the line is dangerous for black as a novelty could be uncorked at an inopportune moment the same can be said for white.
There's also 9...d5 and that was what John Feds. lecture was about I believe.
9..d5 is undoubtedly the best move. The critical line is:
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. O-O-O d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Bd4 e5 13. Bc5 Be6 14. Ne4 Re8 15. h4 h6 16. g4 Qc7 17. g5 h5 18. Bc4 Red8 19. Qf2 Qb7!? 20. Rhe1!? Nf4 21. Bxe6 Nxe6 22. Nf6+ Bxf6 23. gxf6 Qa6 24. a3 Qc4!
24. a3 probably isn't best, but I wanted to show blacks idea. He is threatening to invade into a2 or even win the f6 pawn with Qf4+. The position is completely equal. Whoever says the Dragon is refuted obviously hasn't done his homework. They see Karpov crushing Korchnoi years ago and think, oh man, that looks easy. I played a guy in about 3 blitz games who normally plays the Closed Sicilian, but when he finds out someone plays the dragon, he plays the Yugoslav, because he thinks it just kills the Dragon. Well, we played 3 games with me on the Black side, and he lost all three games. He decided he had had enough and went back to play the closed. He was also almost 100 points higher rated than me. The Dragon is doing fine folks.
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I play sicilian for 20 years now, mostly dragon. I just love it. The first time I played it was against someone of my chessclub, I didn't study the opening, just heard the 1st move. After I beated this guy he said, you know the dragon to well, I said I don't know, just played what I think where the best move, but I didn't study. He was flabbergasted, being beaten by some amateur who had 200 elopoints less than he had.
Sicilian Defense is great , but at Top level its a weapon with two faces ... I think the most powerful team with the very best chess programms to discover new sacs and tactical manouvers to reach a superb ending could win today ... see what happens when Polgar, Topalov , Morozevich, Anand and others playing with ideas of 20 or 30 moves ahead ! ( see for example Polgar-Kasimdzhanov World Chess Championship 2005 on http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1361577 )
I think the point there is that the Sicilian has been analysed so much that opening theory for some lines ( esp Najdorf) goes 30 moves deep.
Now at club level few will know all the theory.
But....GMs will. The result is that the middlegame is composed entirely of book moves and the game doesnt really start until the endgame!!!!
For me, thats just dull.
But that could be why ive started experimenting with the Bird and Dutch!
Originally posted by shakingchessUm...yea, but I don't think he will be playing them anytime soon.
Sicilian Defense is great , but at Top level its a weapon with two faces ... I think the most powerful team with the very best chess programms to discover new sacs and tactical manouvers to reach a superb ending could win today ... see what happens when Polgar, Topalov , Morozevich, Anand and others playing with ideas of 20 or 30 moves ahead ! ( see for ...[text shortened]... mdzhanov World Chess Championship 2005 on http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1361577 )