Can anybody provide deep lines on the Sicilian Najdorf English Attack from white’s side?
nope
Ask the omnipotent Google. I’m sure the Google can answer. All hail the Google!
I checked Google and I did not get move orders on the king-side pawn pushes from white. I wanted more moves on that.
I played g4-g5 in one game without pushing the h-pawn at all and played the f-pawn only up to f3, not f4. The g4-g5 move attacked the f6 knight, which went to h5. I could not dislodge the knight from that square, from where it blocked my kingside activity and also threatened to place an outpost in my kingside.
Improving your tactics and avoiding simple oversights will improve your results far more than memorizing “deep lines” of any opening.
Or further, you can try working it out yourself. You may not come up with current GM practice, but you can get a good bit of the way there with your own analysis and experimentation. You have asked good questions, now see if you can find some different ideas that could address some of the issues. I think this is an important experience in developing as a player.
Five-minute chess is one way of exploring openings with a friend. You get a lot of experience in a short amount of time.
And of course there are databases, openings books, etc. I never played this line, so anything I said would be general and better learned through more authoritative sources.
Go get a copy of Larry Christiansen’s book, “Rocking the Ramparts.” There is a section you might find interesting. You have to work to undrerstand this type of position. Memory alone is not good enough as the theory has a nasty habit of changing virtually every day. Don’t expect anyone to give you any “secrets” or short cuts for free. Figure out and explain to yourself why each move is made in this system. Then you can build your own theory.
I have deduced by myself that before g5 is played, the h-pawn needs to be played to h5 first, so that the knight cannot go there because it will then be protected by the rook. Does this make sense?
Almost. The black knight is probably best on h5 after Pg5. White has to spend 2 tempi to get to h5 (Pg5 normally gets there without moving the h-pawn). That is a lot of time for black to come up with some plan.
Black: Beware of a too early Pd5!! Often white can allow this, and still get a vice-grip on the position, as GM diFirmian demonstrated to me in actual play. (Scoresheet long lost.)
All the best, Joe
Is the black knight on h5 best for white or for black? I found that the black knight on h5 threatens to be a painful outpost on the kingside and cause trouble there. However, it is on the rim, which is generally bad. So, is this good or bad for white (I am writing from white’s perspective, since I am not a practitioner of the Sicilian Defense from black’s side)?
The question you are asking is incredibly hard. There have been many super-GM debates involving players like Kasparov, Anand, Shirov, Topalov, Leko…
This book by Igor Stohl is rather out-of-date, and only a few games touch on the English Attack, but if you want to understand rather than memorize theory, it’s probably a better place to start than an opening manual. The chapter on the English Attack in Emms’s book is also a reasonable intro from Black’s perspective.
One of the problems with this thread - and the one you started on the Evans Gambit - is that you are asking other posters to do an enormous amount of work to provide you with answers. Most are (correctly) referring you to books or software which will allow you to do the work yourself.
Having said this, I have some free time today so I will take a brief stab at addressing, in general terms, your question about putting the knight on h5 in the English attack. First of all, there are many different plans and move orders for both sides in this line, which have a bearing on whether it’s good to to play Nh5. However, I took a quick look at my database of 4 million games and I can tell you that at the GM level, when White plays f3, followed by g4-g5 (without moving the h-pawn) the knight almost NEVER goes to h5. I think the reason for this (again, in general terms) may be that if Black plays Nh5 while the White h-pawn is still on h2, White can leave his rooks on d1 and h1 and carry out the maneuver N-e2-g3, breaking the h-file blockade and proceeding with play on that file.
To give you an example (just one line of dozens in the English Attack), my database has 234 games with the position after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.f3 Be7 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.g4 0–0 10.0–0–0 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 b5 12.g5. The reply Nd7 was chosen 228 times, Ne8 and Nh5 three time each. Of the 81 players rated 2400 FIDE or above, every single one chose Nd7. There is likely a good reason for that.
NM Hal Terrie
And the good reason for the knight to go to d7, is that you picked a line, Hal, without a black pawn on e5. As for the use of databases, I would limit it to games of players 2500+. IMs frequently mimic GMs. GMs have greater understanding. (If the IMs were that good, they would be GMs.)
On book research: They quickly are out-of-date, when offering cutting-edge openings, like the Najdorf.
All this said, there is never reason to memorize any line. Moves are not made in a vacuum. They are made in relationship to the other pieces, and the various squares. Once you have a perspective on a move, you won’t forget it. Ir’s not like knowing the value of pi for 25+ digits.
All the best, Joe Lux NM
I do not expect anyone to expend enormous amounts of time to provide me answers. That would be impractical. I just started the thread so that anyone who knows off the top of his or her head can post.
The Ne2-g3 maneuver looks very effective, and this may very likely be the reason for Nh5 not being very popular. Thank you for this advice. I shall try to follow it in my future games. Also, thanks to those who gave me references. I shall try to access those.