Sicilian Dragon: the ultimate sword and shield to e4

One of the most interesting and enterprising alternatives to e4 relies on the sicilian dragon. Black basically fianchettoes his dark squared bishop on g7 and then tries to exert maximum pressure on the long a1-h8 diagonal. It is less complex than the more solid sicilian najdorf where black basically tries to ambush white by playing a6 to control b5.

In the dragon, black’s main idea is to create a counterattack on the queenside with his active pieces supported by the bishop on g7, whereas white will try to create an attack on the kingside with his massive army of pawns.It’s a typical race between black’s active pieces and white’s raging pawns.

it is because of this complexity that the dragon is highly popular in top level chess. It is often employed by many top grandmasters like Radjabov and Carlsen. In most of the sicilian variations(including the dragon) black often sacrifices the exchange at c3 to weaken white’s queenside pawns in addition to energizing his counterplay.

Nowadays although the dragon is comparatively less popular, it still remains as black’s surest weapon and a very well respected opening in modern chess.