Sicilian Defence Sicilian Defence The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the following moves: The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4. 1.d4 is a statistically more successful opening for White due to the high success rate of the Sicilian defence against 1.e4. "New In Chess" stated in its 2000 Yearbook that of the games in its database, White scored 56.1% in 296,200 games beginning 1.d4, but 54.1% in 349,855 games beginning 1.e4, mainly due to the Sicilian, which held White to a 52.3% score in 145,996 games. 17% of all games between
Ruy Lopez move there are many reasonable alternatives, and most have been deeply explored. It is convenient to divide the possibilities into two groups based on whether or not Black responds with (3...a6), which is named the Morphy Defence after Paul Morphy, although he was not the originator of the line. The variations with Black moves other than 3...a6 are older and generally simpler, but the Morphy Defence lines are more commonly played. By far the most commonly played third move for Black is the Morphy Defence, 3...a6, which "puts the question" to the white bishop. The main point of 3...a6 is