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
Roderigo Lopez Roderigo Lopez Roderigo Lopez (also called Ruy Lopes, Ruy Lopez or Roger Lopez; c. 1517 – 7 June 1594) served as physician-in-chief to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 1581 until his death by execution, having been found guilty of plotting to poison her. A Portuguese "converso" or New Christian of Jewish ancestry, he is the only royal doctor in English history to have been executed, and may have inspired the character of Shylock in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", which was written within four years of his death. The son of a Portuguese royal physician of Jewish descent, Lopez