Taming the Sicilian: A Repertoire for White Against the Most Popular Black Opening

After a lifetime of avoiding the Open Sicilian I finally realized there was nothing better so I reluctantly went looking for a repertoire that was coherent with related positions in as many variations as possible. Since I play fianchetto defenses and this book features g3 based open Sicilians I thought it might fit my style and my chess understanding better than other repertoire books I have seen. I am glad I chose it and also glad I stopped fearing the open Sicilian! I don't use all of the suggestions but I must say they make a very nice coordinated package of variations that are now my mainstay.... I must have bought 50 books of anti-Sicilian openings. I could have saved my money and years of my time by buying this book and putting in the time to study it. The Sicilian will always be a great fighting defense and no book is going to beat it no matter how good. But this book will put you into complex middle games where you will see the common themes better than your opponent. You cannot ask for more than that.

I wouldn't have bought this if I had seen the "Everyman" on the cover in the picture. "Everyman Chess" sells in bad stock bookstores for practically nothing because they are not really opening books. They are books where GMs/IMs take a few games of each major variation of an opening and play them through to the end with some analysis. It's just an easy way for a GM to analyze a few games of an opening and call it a book. For a person learning an opening, they should be taught move-by-move and worry about move 35 later after they know how to get past move 10 in all logical situations. If you are already proficient at the opening then there is probably some value in complete game analysis, but it doesn't do much good to spend hours on one game, one variation and just be in the dark in the opening in all the others.

Davies puts forth his thesis on an opening line, which if successful in practice, may deservedly be referred to as the Davies Variation of the Sicilian. However, his line requires further testing and my initial reaction is that the line is inadequate in serious play. Nonetheless, a noble attempt to deal with a complex, sharp opening.