If you play the Najdorf, please at least know what you're doing....
I would say the majority of games that I play in the Open Sicilian are played in the Najdorf. So I know the themes pretty well. If you want to play this opening for Black, learn it, or else this will happen:
Now this was a Scheveningen and I played 6.Bg5 by accident (I play 6.g4, the Keres Attack), and Black could have punished this by playing h6 but by move 9 we were in a Najdorf that I know all too well. Black can play Be7 or b5 here, but not Rb8. These lines are too fragile to be playing unnecessary moves.
All this talk of technique on BDK's post makes me sad I missed 15.Qh5 mate but it is blitz what are you going to do...
Now this was a Scheveningen and I played 6.Bg5 by accident (I play 6.g4, the Keres Attack), and Black could have punished this by playing h6 but by move 9 we were in a Najdorf that I know all too well. Black can play Be7 or b5 here, but not Rb8. These lines are too fragile to be playing unnecessary moves.
All this talk of technique on BDK's post makes me sad I missed 15.Qh5 mate but it is blitz what are you going to do...
Kasparov said about the Najdorf...we learn each move of the Najdorf through the massacre of some players.
charging king - too true, it seems that there are so many ways to win material or mate the only way to find them is to actually get beaten, and when you do see a new move there is almost always a response, these openings are what made me excited about chess again. Funny that now I am at a point where I could study more subdued openings and still enjoy myself.