The Modernized Sicilian Kan

When you are building your repertoire youhave many choices available against 1.e4. Everyone knows the Sicilian is themost dangerous reply but there are so many choices! Most of them are highlytheoretical such as the Najdorf or the Dragon. Some are very difficult tounderstand from a positional and dynamical point of view. The Kalashnikov andthe Sveshnikov are two good examples, without even mentioning the amount oftheory.I have always been interested by lesstheoretical Sicilians. I have been playing the Classical Sicilian for a longtime and right before the covid period, I decided to find a new one. TheSicilian Kan came to me as a very serious option, and I decided to work on it.In the meantime, my friend and editor Daniel Vanheirzeele offered me the chanceto author a book about it. This came to me as a complete surprise, as I had noexperience with it. In comparison with my work on the Reti and the Dutch (mytwo previous books), I am a newbie on the subject. But I decided to accept thechallenge. I found it extremely interesting, as this gave me a fresh look atthe positions. I think I managed to ask myself the questions everyone wouldhave asked. I also work as a second for others and am accustomed to working onopenings I do not necessarily play as well as finding the key ideas very quickly.So, after a deep initial work to understand the variations, I was ready tostart writing8In opposition to my prior efforts, Idecided to start with the mainlines. I did it both during my work and then inthe structure of the book. It seemed better to address the most difficult linesfirst to prove that Black gets playable positions, and then take care of the lesschallenging lines. This approach allows you to have an idea of the typicalpositions and then compare it with the less usual lines so you may understandwhy the sidelines are not as good. I take this as an opportunity to sharemy knowledge of openings and how I analyze them. I started this book with theidea that I wanted it to be useful for all levels of playing strength,from amateurs to even top grandmasters. I really consider the best books to bethose where everyone can understand the basics of the variations while alsobeing of use to anyone that aims at going deeper into the theory. I based many of the lines andconclusions in this book not only on computer evaluation, but also from apractical point of view. While I did a deep dive using strong engines whenanalyzing the lines I cannot say that they are perfect. The most importantthing is that all of the evaluations are based upon my own understanding and knowledge ofchess. Adrien Demuth November 2021