I'm a Closed Sicilian player and I like the setup with Nc3/g3/Bg2/d3 a lot for White, since it cuts out having to learn tons of theory I'd have to know otherwise against the Open Sicilian. However, I noticed that it's kind of hard to avoid playing into the Taimanov Sicilian without accepting a worse position. Consider:
[FEN ""]
1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 e6
In this position, if I go for my usual setup with 3.g3
, then Black can already play 3...d5
. After 4.dxe5 dxe5
White can choose between 5.d4
and 5.Bg2
, but neither of these lines look appealing to me:
- Even though
5.d4
results in an IQP position, Black gets a lot of activity and White's queen gets chased around. - After
5.Bg2
, Black gets to grab a lot of space sooner or later by pushingd4
.
So instead of 3.g3
, I tried looking into 3.Nge2
, which is the highest-scoring move in this position. Now if Black tries 3...d5
, after 4.exd5 exd5 5.d4
it looks like a very comfortable IQP position for White. So you'd think we'd be able to go for 4.g3
on the next move without having to worry about 4...d5
, right? However, after
[FEN ""]
1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nge2 Nc6
I found out that 4.g3
can lead to a nasty-looking position for White if we try the aforementioned plan in response to d5
. Here's the line given by Stockfish:
[FEN ""]
1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nge2 Nc6 4.g3 d5 5.exd5 exd5 6.d4 Bg4! 7.Bg2 Nxd4 8.h3 Bf3 9.Kf1
Somehow the engine says this is +0.2 for White, even though I'm down a pawn and deprived of castling rights...?
So should I be playing 4.g3
and potentially get into the above wacky line, or play 4.d4
and learn a bunch of Taimanov Sicilian theory?