Najdorf Sicilian

idea is to protect the king from any future queenside attacks, and this buys us a lot of time to develop before needing to castle

e5 push to the center is ideal for controlling the center. The ideal is d5 & e5. But a pre-emptive e5 push can be met with Bb5+ with no good blocking move
- if you block with Bd7, you lose the light squared bishop and then the d5 square becomes an outpost for the knight (good knight bad bishop)
but we cannot allow white to play Nf5, which attacks our weak backward d6 pawn and g7 pawn
- d5 can sometimes counter an early Nc5, thereby undermining it by attacking the defender and attacking the knight with our bishop
whites Bg5 and Bc4 prevent us from playing e5, because white can immediately respond with Nc5

the main line that avoids the Najdorf is Nc3, called the closed sicilian. One idea is to transition to a king-side fianchetto, which controls the center

b5 mid game "gambit", to also open the b-file for a queenside attack, can generate some initiative for black
- in a position with opposite side castles, a fast attack/initiative is a more important imbalance than material
- it is important not to give up initiative if you have a g6 or h6 pawn