Talk:Sicilian Defence

New article: Sicilian Defence, Classical Variation

A new article called Sicilian Defense, Classical Variation should be created. The Sicilian Defense article is too long. - HappyMouse2 (talk) 02:31, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

just do it! – ishwar  (speak) 04:08, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I have created the article Sicilian Defence, Classical Variation. It is currently a stub. Please expand that article. The current Sicilian Defence article should be shortened. HappyMouse2 (talk) 22:22, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

The Sicilian Defence is one of the most frequently played and important openings in chess. It's article should be long. The current draft article doesn't look ready for wikipedia yet. Besides the "Classical Variation" isn't so much a variation as a move order; Black is refusing to commit to the Najdorf or Scheveningen or Dragon, but retains transposition possibilities for all three. You're more likely to find a book on the "Richter Rauzer Variation" or "Sozin Variation" than the "Classical Variation". MaxBrowne2 (talk) 22:42, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the last point, that's not really true: the transpositions are not all that common in practice, and since the 1990s, I think it's safe to say there have been more books written on the Classical in general than on any of its specific branches. But you are of course right regarding the stub that was created. We could use a fork on the Classical, but someone actually needs to first write the content that would justify creating the fork. Cobblet (talk) 02:39, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

2. e5 games by Steinitz

In "Other moves" section there is this statement: "Wilhelm Steinitz played 2.e5 at least three times in tournament play, defeating Szymon Winawer, Max Weiss, and Celso Golmayo Zúpide" and it is referenced by https://chesstempo.com/game-database.html, however this database doesn't contain any of these games. There are some transpositions from French defense though (1.e4 e6 2.e5 c5), but I don't think that counts. I tried searching games in other databases, but failed. So what should we do about it? Deltaspace42 (talk) 09:32, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

More than one year later, I have decided to be bold and I've just removed this statement. Deltaspace⁴² (talk • contribs) 12:47, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

6. Nxc6

@Jishiboka1: Thank you for finding a source for the use of "?!" here. But now you must cite it! See WP:CITE if you are unsure how to do this. Bruce leverett (talk) 04:07, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Merge Sicilian Defence: Najdorf Variation into Sicilian Defence

Makes sense, anyway, more likely that a reader wanting to read about the Sicilian Defence: Najdorf Variation will go to Sicilian Defence WinnerWinnerChickenDinne (talk) 00:37, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Sicilian is kind of weird since there's a ton of theory for it even though namewise (since it used to be waaaay less common than 1...e5) it didn't get split into discrete lines for opening study purposes like 1...e5 did. There's probably more than enough Najdorf stuff to fill up its own page, but more could be done to create a good summary of such split articles here. One idea I have is to reduce the nesting by not putting all Open Sicilians (which I would guess collectively are at least 80% of Sicilian theory) in a single second level header. Dayshade (talk) 15:21, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Lede

@MaxBrowne2: I'm glad you trashed the intro; I had been kind of trying to preserve more from the old intro that I also hated together with some new stuff, but was unhappy with the result anyway. Don't you think there should be not nothing about possible continuations though? So maybe bring something back that is less bad? Any ideas? Dayshade (talk) 15:31, 28 February 2026 (UTC)