I've heard that this is the new favorite anti-Sicilian, and a DB search on chesslive.de shows 100 results with roughly 3/4 in 2006. Does anybody have any games with it on here, or on FICS, ICC, or PC? Does anybody know anything about it? Is it positional, tactical, or somewhere in between? Have any books been written on it, etc.
Shabalov has a major plus score with this opening and he has played this system in recent history. Check out a few of his games.
He is an exceptional attacking player (not to mention 2600+ rated). I love his style.
And the first few posts on the page below on the opening system are good too (particularly the 2nd post):
http://www.chesspublishing.com/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1146115221/15
There is always the Rossolimo, Closed Sicilian, 2. c3 Anti-Sicilian vars.
I have actually had the experience of talking and analyzing this line with Shabalov in person for a couple of hours. He is super cool and thinks that it's a good line. His basic attitude on the whole thing is is that, maybe Black has a good line against this, but until Black finds it, I am gonna keep racking up wins with it because I know the ideas and lines better than the other guy. Alot of times the idea is to play c3 and Nc2, followed by d4, but against some set-ups white plays Rossolimo style with 3. Bb5, and in others still White plays in Grand Prix style with f4, etc.. I would encourage you to find Shaba's games and look at them. Also, I think Jan Ehlvest has played around with it in a couple of games. There aren't any books or anything like that, which makes it a very dangerous weapon for people who know it well. I played it for a while and scored pretty dang well.
Originally posted by !~TONY~!Yeah, I noticed that Shabalov uses it and has scored well with it, I'll have to take a look through some of his games. I really should visit one of his lectures too, it's not that far from me really.
I have actually had the experience of talking and analyzing this line with Shabalov in person for a couple of hours. He is super cool and thinks that it's a good line. His basic attitude on the whole thing is is that, maybe Black has a good line against this, but until Black finds it, I am gonna keep racking up wins with it because I know the ideas and line ...[text shortened]... rous weapon for people who know it well. I played it for a while and scored pretty dang well.