Simon Williams on Dragodorf - The New Sicilian Dragon

Along with GM Simon William's Dutch Defence, I have also picked up his Sicilian Dragodorf opening after watching a series of videos by him in chess.com. Before this I was using the Accelerated Dragon variation by GM Roman Dzinzhichashvilli from the book Chess Openings for Black, Explained. In fact almost all my opening repertoire are from this book and its companion book Chess Openings for White, Explained.


The New Sicilian Dragon was published by Simon at 2009 from Everyman Chess and hence is a bit outdated compared to the fascinating developments made by him in recent years that you can learn from his Killer Dragon DVD pairs. Although I have went through the DVDs twice, I have started reading the book to better internalize the rational and the development of the Dragodorf from its root (relatively speaking). Also I have found Simon explains chess very well, if not as good as Roman, mixing humor all along the way. So its fun reading him or watching his videos. I have also picked his Hillybilly attack against Caro-Kann, King's Gambit with 3. Nc3 variation, Sicilian Grand Prix attack to name a few. His playing style is attacking and hence his openings often have a touch of a pawn sacrifice to gain tempo in development and attack. This I assume will help me master open games.

Simon explained different variations and the theories with the help of 62 full games. Here are those games.

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Game # 12

Ashik vs Sos Hakobyan, 7th Round, TNM

The Killer Dutch by Simon Williams

I started studying The Killer Dutch by Simon Williams recently after I purchased it from amazon.com . I had weakness against 2.d4 as black all along my life and I hope to get over it with the Dutch defense. I already went through Simon's chess.com series on this twice.

The book starts with some games played GM Williams to give a feel of the opening. Then it delves deep inside the opening theories. He deviated from the regular move of Dutch Defence 1. d4 f5 to 1.d4 e6 2. c4 f5 to avoid sidelines and gambits against Dutch defence. But that also means White can get into The French Defence in move two by playing 1. d4 e6 2. e4. But usually people who dont start with the move 1.e4 are usually not eager to transpose to French Defence as White after playing d4 or c4 or Nf3 in the first move.

Be aware of GM Roman's recommendation against Dutch Defence here -

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