Sozin

Sozin - Velimirovic

The Sozin / Velimirovic is a sharp response by White to Black having played the Classical Sicilian with 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6. The Sozin / Velimirovic is then introduced by the move 6 Bc4, a notorious favorite of Bobby Fischer. Although the bishop will be blunted by ... e7-e6, White still obtains many attacking chances, sometimes with a violent sacrifice on e6, but more often simply by having quick development, and initiating a kingside / central pawn storm. Herein lies the difference between the Sozin and the Velimirovic - in the Sozin White castles kingside and plays f2-f4 and then either e4-e5 or f4-f5; in the Velimirovic, White castles queenside and throws forward the spike g2-g4-g5. After 6 ... e6, White can simply play 7 O-O or 7 Be3 followed by 8 O-O with a Sozin; if White is headed to a Velimirovic, the idea is to respond to 6 ... e6 with 7 Be3, and then 8 Qe2 and 9 O-O-O. In this line, the White queen sits on e2 to stop ... Nf6-g4 and to support sacrifices like Nc3-d5 if the Black king sticks in the center. To avoid all of this, Black often reacts to 6 Bc4 with the immediate 6 ... Qb6 to push the White knight away from d4 and get away from the main lines of the Sozin and Velimirovic. The most famous Sozin game was from the 1972 Fischer - Spassky match which featured 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6 6 Bc4 e6 7 O-O Be7 8 Be3 and White soon played f2-f4 and e4-e5, but Spassky was able to muster up decent counterplay on the queenside.