I Tried Quitting Theory (Chess Experiment)

The No Theory Chess Experiment (1600+ Games)

I’ve never really liked opening study, I’ve got to be honest. I always found it a distraction from what I considered more important areas of chess study, like tactics or playing over master games.

As a 1.e4 player, the Sicilian was a particular minefield. All those potential lines that Black could throw at you. What a pain.

I tried the crazy route of preparing for all the different Dragons and Najdorfs and Sveshnikovs – the list was endless.

I bought opening books and studied the lines via the database and made some ground, but it just felt overwhelming, even with a set-up that attempted to play simiilar structures. What’s more, my score against the Sicilian wasn’t great.

Something had to change.

One day I thought about something offbeat and completely devoid of theory. 2.Bd3!? It looked ridiculous on the surface, but the idea was to try and take the Sicilian player completely out of book and to aim for e4–e5 structures.

I thought I’d invented a new opening, only to find that IM Danny Kopec had tried the same approach. Phew, it couldn’t be completely crazy then, I thought.

So, I dropped the traditional Open Sicilian and tried the 2.Bd3 idea for more than 700 games. Would this strange-looking move with no theory attached stand up to traditional Sicilian theory at the 1800 club level?

I tried this and gathered the data, which is as follows:

Traditional Sicilian:
Games: 898
Win: 45%
Draw: 5%
Loss: 50%
Score: 47.5%

Bd3 Sicilian:
Games: 745
Win: 50%
Draw: 5%
Loss: 45%
Score: 51.5%

So, the Bd3 Sicilian outscored the traditional Sicilian set-up by 3.5%. Not a massive increase. However, this involved no theory whatsoever and allowed me to work on more important aspects of chess.

You can see more about it in the four-minute video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G8h77qGcDg