Sicilian Najdorf
Opening course for Black · ECO B90-B99
One quiet pawn move, and then everything happens.
5...a6 develops nothing. It takes b5 away from White's bishop and both knights, and it gets ...b5 ready, and that is enough to have built the most analysed opening in chess on top of it. The pawn that follows is ...e5, hitting the knight in the middle and accepting a hole on d5 in exchange for the initiative. This course answers all seven of White's serious sixth moves plus the queen and rook tries a club opponent reaches for, and it stops where its sources stop rather than guessing at the twenty-fifth move of the Poisoned Pawn.
- Chapters
- 3
- Lines
- 12
- Sources
- 7
Nothing to review. Learn the next line.
Next: Give the queen a job and run, against 6.Bg5.
Part of your daily work.
- Learn
- Walk the line with the coach, a note on the moves that need one.
- Recall
- Play it from memory. Learned lines come back on a schedule.
- Tempo
- The same line against the clock, for a score to beat.
- Off book
- The opponent leaves the book with a real move; Stockfish prices your answers.
Before the moves: the big ideas
What ...a6 is actually for
It keeps a white knight and the light-squared bishop out of b5, where they would hit d6 and never be chased away. It also prepares ...b5, which takes queenside space and threatens ...b4 to knock the knight off c3, the piece defending e4. Two jobs, no development, and it works because Black has time in this structure.
...e5 and the hole it leaves
The move that makes it a Najdorf rather than a Scheveningen. It kicks the knight out of the centre and stops e4-e5 forever, and it costs Black control of d5. White spends the whole middlegame trying to land a piece there, usually a knight via c3 or e2. Black spends it covering the square: the bishop to e6, a knight to b6 or f6, sometimes ...b5 first so the knights have squares.
The knights go d7 and b6, not c6
In most Sicilians the queen's knight belongs on c6. Here it goes to d7, so it can come to b6 to hold d5, or to c5 to hit e4, and so the c-file stays clear for a rook. Getting ...b5 in first makes the whole formation work, which is why White so often answers with a2-a4.
Opposite castling means counting moves
Against 6.Bg5 and the English Attack, White castles long and throws the g and h pawns forward while Black plays on the queenside with ...b5-b4. Neither side gets to defend. The habit worth building is counting: how many moves does the attack need, and does the pawn on b4 arrive before the pawn on g5 does.
The lines, chapter by chapter
In learning order. The coach serves review one line a day; open any line yourself when you want it now.
Where the Bishop Goes
4 lines
White's sixth move decides the game's character, and four of the seven serious ones develop the queen's bishop. On g5 it goes for the throat and rules out ...e5; on e3 it starts the modern main line, with pawns coming down the board behind it; on e2 it plays chess; on c4 it stares at f7. The first three all end with both kings under fire, which is why the Najdorf is the opening it is.
When White Pushes a Pawn Instead
3 lines
Three sixth moves that commit a pawn before a piece. 6.f4 builds an attack straight away, 6.h3 and 6.g3 are slower and both aim at the same square everything in this opening aims at. None of them stops ...e5, and against the first one there is a good reason to play something else.
When White Leaves Book on Move Six
5 lines
Grandmasters have played twenty-two different sixth moves here, and a club opponent who does not want to memorise the English Attack will play one of them. These five are the ones a whole readable chapter is devoted to: a rook lift, three queen moves and a bishop to d3. None of them is bad. All of them give Black a specific way to punish the loss of time.
Puzzles from this opening
The Sicilian Najdorf in brief
The Sicilian Najdorf is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6, and it is filed under ECO B90-B99. This course teaches it from Black's side in 12 drills across 3 chapters, with a coach note on the moves that need one, every position checked with Stockfish at depth 20, and every plan credited to the author who wrote it down.
Lines you will drill
- Give the queen a job and run against 6.Bg5
- Fight for d5 first against 6.Be3, the English Attack
- The set-up that teaches the opening against 6.Be2, the Opocensky
- Shut the diagonal against 6.Bc4, the Fischer-Sozin
- Fianchetto and take the diagonal against 6.f4, the Amsterdam
- Stop the pawn before it starts against 6.h3, the Adams Attack
- Against the fianchetto against 6.g3, the Zagreb
- Take the endgame against 6.Rg1, the Petronić
- Punish the queen with a queen against 6.Qf3
- Hit the middle immediately against 6.Qe2
- The Dragadorf against 6.Qd3
- Fianchetto against the bishop against 6.Bd3, the Yates
Theory credited to
- Understanding before Moving 3: Sicilian Structures Part 1IM Herman Grooten
- The Modernized NajdorfGM Milos Pavlovic
- The Najdorf in Black and WhiteGM Bryan Smith
- Wikipedia: Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation
- lichess-org/chess-openings
- Chess.com opening database
- 365Chess opening explorer
3 branches are deliberately not drilled here, and the course records which and why rather than leaving the gap silent.
Questions
- What is the Sicilian Najdorf?
- The Sicilian Najdorf is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6, filed under ECO B90-B99. One quiet pawn move, and then everything happens. It takes b5 away from White's bishop and both knights, and it gets ...b5 ready, and that is enough to have built the most analysed opening in chess on top of it.
- How do you learn the Sicilian Najdorf?
- This course splits it into 12 drills across 3 chapters. You play each line from Black's side against a coach note that explains the move, then the same lines come back on a spaced-repetition schedule until you can play them without prompting. Every position is verified with Stockfish at depth 20 before it ships.
- What does White play against the Sicilian Najdorf?
- The course answers every major reply: Bg5, Be3, Be2, Bc4, f4, h3, g3. Each one has its own drill or a documented transposition into another, and the branches that are not drilled are listed with the reason.
- Where does the theory in this Sicilian Najdorf course come from?
- From published work by IM Herman Grooten, GM Milos Pavlovic, GM Bryan Smith and the reference sources credited on this page. The engine verifies the moves; the plans and assessments belong to the authors, and every drill records the page or section it came from.