The author’s approach, the basic structure of the repertoire and the presentation of the contents is the same. The original in Spanish is due to appear soon.

Hope you enjoy the book
Patricia Llaneza

By comparison, in an open Sicilian – at least the sharpest lines with opposite castling – the basic plan is often “simple”: go straight for the opponent’s king. The complexity lies on how to do this, in particular how to combine attack and defense. And it is understandable if “weaker” players (up to the level of Tiviakov!? ) want to avoid the sharpest lines – because they don’t like complex or even chaotic positions, and/or because they are afraid of the opponent’s superior theoretical knowledge. Even if they play mainlines against other responses to 1.e4 … .
Back on thread: even those players can probably benefit from de la Villa’s book, maybe it even changes their attitude towards the open Sicilian.

However from the point of view of the player , it requires quite some skills and understanding of chess to play the so called “simple position” at a high level , because unlike complicated positions with so many possibilities , in “simple positions” , you actually need to calculate all the lines “until the end” or at least very far , much farther than in complicated positions and back up all this with a mastery of endgame technique .

So even though some 1d4 replies like the classical queen’s gambit or Tarrasch defence leads to what some call “boring” games , for the players , it is often less boring than it seems . I think it’s Kasparov recently who criticized Radjabov telling that “Radjabov doesn(t know how to play simple position properly , that’s why he prefers complicated position ” . I don’t know if Gary was right about Radjabov , but i know that it can be true for many players

Although i humbly think that c3 sicilian or Rossolimo (Bb5) , closed sicilian or with Bg2 fianchetto are also part of the “main lines” , IMO a sicilian player should have answers to them

However when you say that Ruy Lopez or 1.e4 “in general” leads to more complicated games , here i respectfully do not agree , but i understand why you say this basically , i think you mean it leads to games where Black has more aggressive setups choices against 1.e4 , where he can complicate the game earlier than against d4 openings .

Cause If we talk about complications , i’m not sure most Grunfeld positions , many King’s Indian , Benoni , even some sharp Slav , not only Botvinnik/Mosocw lines or even some Nimzo positions (tactical players like Polgar use Nimzo a lot ) etc.. are less “complex” than the Ruy Lopez .

However with 1.d4 , the game gets complicated later on IMHO and “in general ” is less “tactically sharp” than what you generally meet against 1.e4 . In 1.e4 openings , White fights for the initiative from move 1 but so does Black , so i agree that generally speaking , 1.e4 games are more dynamic

However IMHO With 1.d4 , White puts less pressure on Black than 1.e4 at the start , but on the other hand , he sometimes gets long term slight advantage and has more “strategical control ” on the position , or sometimes just a slight space advantage , hoping to bring a slightly better endgame and convert it ,

For many years, I used to play 1.e4 c5 2.c3 with reasonable success, probably because I was often more familiar with the resulting positions than my opponent – precisely because they often lead to d4 structures and, in any case, not to a typical open Sicilian. Playing positions which your opponent does not like or understand may be as important as the fact that you like and understand them? And switching to 1.d4 would have implied having to deal with different strategic and tactical issues in the KID, Nimzo-Indian or Dutch. Another advantage may be: your opponent has to take more risks if he wants to play for a win with black.
Eventually I got bored of 2.c3, largely because the variation became more widely known – and even amateurs became familar with equalizing or even outright drawish lines for black.

Another point: the statement that 1.e4 should always lead to open play is a tiny bit general or dogmatic. If it was 100% true:
- Would the Italian, Scotch or King’s gambit be a better reply to 1.-e5 than the mostly closed Ruy Lopez?
- Would the exchange variation be best against the French?
- In the Sicilian, what about 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 ? Unlike 2.c3 or the Grand Prix Attack this seems a viable option even at top GM level. Probably for reasons given above: avoiding forced and deepy analyzed lines (of the Sveshnikov) and entering a more strategic battle.