One Idea, Seven Battlegrounds: The Open Sicilian Express for White
The Open Sicilian has never really been a single opening. It is a dozen separate wars — the Najdorf, the Dragon, the Sveshnikov, the Taimanov — each with its own theory, its own tabiyas, its own library of grandmaster games. What ties them together in the hands of GM Pier Luigi Basso is one instruction, repeated from the opening moves of every system: go for the attack, period.
That sentence is the foundation of this course. Where most Open Sicilian repertoires ask you to memorize seven different philosophies, the Open Sicilian Express asks you to absorb one — and then shows you the concrete form it takes in each system: the Be3-and-g4 pawn storm against the Taimanov, the Yugoslav Attack against the Dragon, the immediate 7.Nd5 against the Sveshnikov, the modern f4-and-Nb3 plan against the Najdorf.
A repertoire, not an encyclopedia
The course is a distillation of the full seven-volume Jospem versus the Sicilian repertoire — hundreds of variations of cutting-edge theory — condensed into a single, ready-to-play weapon. The lines are the same world-class lines; the modern theory is the same modern theory. What changes is the signal-to-noise ratio: everything that does not matter at the board has been stripped away.
The centerpiece is the Najdorf, the system every Open Sicilian player must know inside out. Here Basso keeps the attacking idea developed in the first volume of the original series — 6.f4 e5 7.Nb3 — preserving the freshness and the attacking flavor in compact form. The same logic governs the rest of the repertoire: the most ambitious, most testing continuation in each line, chosen so the game lands in White's hands as early as possible.
The authors
GM Pier Luigi Basso built this course on the foundation of the series he co-created with GM Jose Martinez Alcantara — the Peruvian grandmaster better known online as Jospem, whose name the series carries. Their reasoning is practical: the full seven volumes are the reference work, but most players want a single coherent repertoire they can play next week, not a shelf they have to read first. The Express is that repertoire.
What's inside
- Seven volumes condensed into a single, ready-to-play course
- 20 test positions
- Memory Booster
- A "To Go" version of every chapter
- Video instruction
- Multilingual PGN (English, German, French, Spanish)
Map of variations
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3
- 2...d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 — Najdorf, main line 6.f4 e5 7.Nb3 → Volume I
- 5...g6 — Dragon, met by the Yugoslav Attack → Volume VI
- 5...Nc6 — Classical / Rauzer, 6.Bc4 → Volume V
- 2...Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 — Sveshnikov, 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Nd5 → Volume IV
- 4...g6 — Accelerated Dragon, 5.Nc3 → Volume VI
- 4...e5 — Kalashnikov, 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 → Volume VII
- 2...e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be3 a6 7.g4 — Taimanov → Volume II
- 4...a6 5.Bd3 — Paulsen → Volume III
- 4...Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Qd3 — Four Knights → Volume VII
- 4...Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.f4 — Scheveningen → Volume VII
The full picture
If the Express is the fast track, the seven-volume Jospem versus the Sicilian series is the complete map — the same recommendations explored at full depth, volume by volume. The two are designed to work together: start with the Express to get a working repertoire fast, then deepen any system that becomes a regular battleground.
Get started
The entire seven-volume repertoire, stripped down to what truly matters at the board — your fast track to the Open Sicilian.