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I've seen one video on YouTube about the Sicilian defense and wanted to try it on a game. In this game, my opponent played 2. Qh5, trying to capture c5,and if b6 then Qd5 and rook is taken whatever I play.

White had a very powerful and aggressive opening, giving me no rest or tempo to develop my pieces. He however did a blunder on the 12th move and resigned the game after losing his queen.

So, what would you recommend to play after Qh5 ?

[FEN ""]
[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2013.03.16"]
[White "CNaveen1403"]
[Black "ychaouche"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1340"]
[BlackElo "1320"]
[TimeControl "30|0"]
[Termination "ychaouche won by resignation"]

1.e4 c5 2.Qh5 d6 3.Bc4 g6 4.Qf3 Nf6 5.d3 Bg4 6.Qg3 a6 7.Bg5 Nbd7 8.Bd5 Nxd5 9.exd5 Bf5 10.Qf3 Bg7 11.c3 Ne5 12.Qf4 Nxd3+ 0-1
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  • 4
    1.e4 c5 2.Qh5 b6 3.Qd5 Black has 3...Nc6, the Rook is not lost.
    – Akavall
    Commented Mar 16, 2013 at 18:55

3 Answers 3

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9

I would play 2... Nf6, chasing the queen. If he takes the pawn on c5, you take his pawn on e4, attacking the queen. Then play d5 to support your knight on e4. If White plays d3, you can move your knight back to f6, and have the better of both the piece and the pawn positions.

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  • 1
    +1 Nice, Nf6, never really considered that since I usually do not play c5 there, and if I did I would probably have gone with e6 as a response. Good point about nxe4 threat, which is legitimate.
    – Travis J
    Commented Mar 20, 2013 at 7:51
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Nakamura has played it a few times, but it seems the treatment Volokitin gave him cured him of the disease. The point of 2...Nf6 is 3.Qxc5 Nxe4 and black is a bit better.

[FEN ""]
[Event "6. YM"]
[Site "Lausanne SUI"]
[Date "2005.09.19"]
[Round "3.2"]
[White "Nakamura, H"]
[Black "Volokitin, And"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2660"]
[BlackElo "2671"]
[ECO "B20"]
[EventDate "2005.09.14"]

1.e4 c5 2.Qh5 Nf6 3.Qh4 Nc6 4.Be2 e5 5.d3 Be7 6.Qg3 d5 7.Nd2 O-O 8.c3 b5 
9.Nh3 d4 10.c4 Ne8 11.cxb5 Bh4 12.Qf3 Nb4 13.Bd1 f5 14.a3 Nd6 15.axb4 fxe4
16.Qh5 Bxh3 17.g3 Qf6 18.Bb3+ Kh8 19.f3 exf3 20.Kf2 Bg5 21.Nxf3 g6 22.Bxg5
Qf5 23.Qxh3 Qxf3+ 0-1

Edit: weird that the viewer doesn't show headers. That's Nakamura-Volokitin, Lausanne 2005.

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    jesus that game was brutal
    – flicflac
    Commented Mar 17, 2013 at 9:05
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2.Qh5 is a bad move; the queen will get kicked around as in your game. 2...d6 and 2...e6 are both fine responses. One nice thing about 2...e6 is that it already protects f7 against 3.Bc4.

I would not say that White "gave you no rest or tempo to develop my pieces". You generally had more pieces developed than he did, because he wasted time moving his queen around. The one move of yours I question is 6....a6. You had a perfect opportunity here to develop a piece (for example, 6...Bg7, developing the bishop and preparing to castle), and instead you played a little pawn move on the edge that accomplished nothing but "threatening" to play b5 and kick his bishop back to b3.

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  • a6 was preventing Bb5
    – ychaouche
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 12:47
  • White shouldn't really want to play Bb5+; their bishop is already on a fine square and they have lots of undeveloped pieces, so they should be developing them instead of moving the bishop again. If 6...Bg7 7.Bb5+, you can just play 7...Nbd7 (for example), developing another piece. The pin will be gone as soon as you castle.
    – dfan
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 16:13

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