nygren.ca

:P I definitely look forward to having a bunch of different people to play regularly with

Yeah I love doing that. The trap play. Still, I should have seen it, I'm a better player than that. :P That kind of play is what I specialize at. But I definitely look forward to playing regularly against you. You have a different style of play compared to Mike, so I think stand to gain a lot from playing with you... but I'm going to have to put you in the "don't make moves against while at work" category, lol.

It was a bit of a trap - your queen had to go back to d1, but the attack on the queen served to cover up the real square my knight was looking at. Queen's pawn serves to nicely avoid all the random things that can happen in a King's pawn opening

And I don't know the Sicilian as white cuz I open queen's pawn, heh.

Oops. That was dumb of me. :D

a6 also prvents Nb5, and is definitely a strong move.

Well, your move (Nf6) seems really natural to me, and is probably right - the nice thing about playing the Sicilian as black is that you can learn a variation and stick to it, whereas white sort of has to know whatever variation you choose. I honestly don't know much about it, but there are some good books you can check out; if you wanted to study them, I would focus less on memorizing specific moves and more on understanding the plan that the opening is trying to build to (ie. key pawn moves to aim for). I honestly know very little about the Sicilian, apart from one or two variations that I've played against a bunch

And as to the rest... you clearly know a lot more about opening theory than I do, lol. I've picked a handful of opens to practice while I slowly expand my repertoire. Prior to joining this site, I didn't know any opening theory at all. So any advice you have for me would be greatly appreciated. :)

The only move I'm not certain about is the Nf3 move, lol. Everything I did, and that you did prior to that, is part of an established variation. I've mostly played the sicilian from the black side, but I wasn't really sure what came next so I went with the knight move. Nb3 is actually the standard response to my moving e6. a6 is played to prevent Bb5+, which is a very annoying move that puts a lot of pressure on black.

Or maybe I'm wrong about that? I thought that d6 started the Dragon and a6 the Najdorf, but I think d6 can be played in the Najdorf (whereas e5 is normally played in the Orthodox). Yes? No? There are too many lines in the Sicilian... :P

I was actually talking about my move - I played Nb3, because I'm pretty sure it's incorrect to play Nf3. I don't know much about the black moves, although I think that d6 and a6 are rarely played together at the beginning (I'm not sure why, though - it seems fine to me).

actually i think Nf3 and g6 is the dragon Sicilian, it's the e5 move that is unusual.

I know that you both are very experienced players, make sure that you get along! If I ever decide to study a game, I am sure that it will be between you too. Cheers, Have have fun and enjoy the site. Welcome Micheal!!! I am looking forward to getting my ass kicked by you and Devin in the near future! :)

Hmmm, is it? I'll hafta look at that. :) Still learning it.

*Sicilians. I know how to spell...

I'm pretty sure that Nf3 is just always wrong in these sorts of Scillians, but I can't for the life of me figure out why...