Dear Chess Friends! 

I’m sure most of you at least once considered changing the opening repertoire. For example, I’ve been playing French Defense with Black pieces since I was 11. At the age of 32 I decided to switch the opening. I feel better in more open, complicated & sharp positions. That’s why I chose Kan Sicilian and had a success there.

This time I feel I need to extend my opening repertoire for Black to be more flexible and, of course, to take my opponents by surprise. That’s why I learned how to play Paulsen (Taimanov) Sicilian, which is quite similar to Kan Sicilian, but at the same time has its own ideas and lines which sometimes lead to even sharper positions that I usually meet in Kan Sicilian.

I’m talking about this position: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6

I also noticed that Paulsen Sicilian is played more often at GM’s level which only proves the competitiveness of this opening. Nepo, Ivanchuk, Caruana, Giri, Harikrishna and even Anand play this opening successfully. However, Paulsen/Taimanov Sicilian is still understudied opening and contains a lot of room for your own creativity. Most club players are usually unfamiliar with it and has no idea what exactly to play against this opening, and when they deviate, Black gets a chance to overtake the initiative and play for a win. Actually, Black may play for a win from the very beginning in this opening.

I decided to share my expertise with you and demonstrate some of the lines of this complicated opening on my next 123rd webinar “Play for a Win with Paulsen/Taimanov Sicilian”.

The webinar starts on Sunday (1st of May) at 10 a.m. (EDT), 2 p.m. (GMT), 5 p.m. (Moscow time). This webinar is free. 

Please, join for the webinar on my Twitch or YouTube channels:

https://www.twitch.tv/tricks_of_chess

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfk1bxCgvfhNRPtUZs0FWOw

and improve your chess performance!

See you at the webinar!

FM Victor Neustroev