Moving on to the Sicilian Defense, Joe Gallagher's c3 Sicilian covers the variation 1.e4 c5 2.c3 in admirable detail. Gallagher has a very readable style with an abundance of clear and well-reasoned opinions. He makes a book that is in fact quite dense with games and analysis move along very smoothly. This is characteristic of Gallagher's work; he is one of the leading chess writers in the world, with a number of superb books to his credit, e.g., books on the King's Gambit and Saemisch King's Indian (a personal favorite), the wildly-popular Beating the Anti-Sicilians, the recent Najdorf: Modern Lines (co-authored with Nunn) and Nunn's Chess Openings (a collaboration of four authors). In fact, I believe that one can buy any of Gallagher's books and be assured of getting your money's worth and much more.

Unfortunately, I have to say that in the case of this new book, Gallagher was simply unlucky. As usual, he does a wonderful job of identifying the most critical lines and adding relevant analysis where necessary. The problem has nothing to do with the quality of his work, but rather, with his choice of subject matter and with the evolution of theory during the time he was presumably putting the book together. I have been working on 2.c3 lines with GM Tal Shaked for some years now, and with the fairly recent solution of certain positions, I strongly believe that White's play is at a dead end in the two main lines. As Gallagher himself delineates, 2...Nf6 is now giving Black effortless, often sterile, equality (or more than equality, in those complex lines where White tries to keep the play alive). White's many new ideas over the last ten years, which revived 2.c3 in international play, are petering out or being refuted. Thus, instead of the assessments like "equal but unclear" or "with compensation for the pawn(s)" which characterize much of modern theory, the 2...Nf6 lines are consistently leading to prospectless play (at best) from White's point of view. To make matters worse, 2...d5 has never been in better shape, especially in the ...Nf6 and ...Bg4 variations. Again, a careful reading of Gallagher's book confirms that White is having a hard time making it even interesting. And he is too honest to suggest otherwise. But if this is true, one wonders if 2.c3 is worth writing a large book about, at least until someone finds new ways to bolster White's cause. In fact, just about every other anti-Sicilian system is more popular among top players at present.

It's interesting that Gallagher, in his Introduction, says that he has "tried out virtually every" variation as Black against 2.c3, and that he has "never found a single found a single variation for Black that has given complete satisfaction." He also notes that he would no longer recommend the two antidotes he gave in Beating the Anti-Sicilian, i.e., 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nc6 5.Nc3 cxd4 6.cxd4 e5!?, and the 2...Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 sideline with 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nf3 e6 6.cxd4 b6. Well, yes, those lines may still be playable, but at the very least, they give White full-fledged play with a lot of options and attacking chances, something sorely missing in the main 2...Nf6 lines. In fact, it was the prevalence of those two antidotes and a number of other irregular defenses in international play that made 2.c3 so much fun to play a few years ago. Alas, we're at a different point now, and leading players are looking elsewhere for anti-Sicilian solutions.

So I guess that's not a positive recommendation, but for an original reason: Gallagher's book is very well done, and therefore, from White's point of view, very discouraging. In fact, a bit of independent analysis only worsens the situation, if my own experience is accurate. I would therefore recommend c3 Sicilian mainly to Sicilian players who need to find a system with Black versus 2.c3. For those players of White who are looking for another way to avoid the Open Sicilian (2.Nf3 and 3.d4), Steffen Pedersen's Easy Guide to the Bb5 Sicilian may be the answer. In the long run, I'm not confident that the Bb5 systems produce any theoretical advantage, but for the moment, these fashionable lines are producing some very interesting play. Personally, I think that the Rossolimo Variation (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5) will create problems for Black for many years to come; the lines are very flexible, and therefore not even beginning to be exhausted. I also think certain lines are somewhat better for White than Pedersen indicates. As far as I can tell, the Moscow Variation (2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+) gives Black clearer methods of equalizing. On the other hand, I know the Rossolimo better than the Moscow, so I could well be wrong. In any case, the equality that results from the Moscow is much more interesting and full of content than the equality of the type I bemoaned above arising from the 2.c3 lines.

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