King's Anti-Sicilians for Black

Daniel King is my favorite YouTuber, and his channel, Power Play Chess is a goldmine. GM King focuses on covering grandmaster games and analyzes most games from the top events. The reason his videos are remarkable is a combination of his chess expertise, years of experience commentating on chess, something he’s been doing for 30 years, and his charm. He is relatable, witty, and professional at the same time. His videos aren’t clickbaity crap, and he delivers true value every time. His books, just as his videos, are immensely valuable too. King’s Anti-Sicilians for Black and the Kalashnikov Sicilian don’t necessarily have to be used or read together. Personally, I don’t play the Kalashnikov, but I have still used his Anti-Sicilians for my own repertoire.The Anti-Sicilians cover every system for white in which white doesn’t play 3.d4. In other words, every annoying Sicilian variation players with black don’t expect and don’t like facing, such as the Alapin, the Grand Prix, the Closed Sicilian, Rossolimo, etc.

His book is a result of years of his own personal experience playing the Sicilian with both sides. 

A quote from the introduction struck a chord with me: “... my opponents were simply too scared to play into my sharp Open Sicilian and I had already won the psychological battle.” I find that statement very relatable and I think that any time our opponents avoid the main lines and opt for a rare line or a surprise, we have the upper hand psychologically. Daniel goes on to say: “Besides, I learned over time that the majority of the Anti-Sicilians are harmless for black.” I think I don’t agree with that, as I’ve had great success with the Rossolimo and the Closed Sicilian over the years.

The book is divided into 26 chapters, each covering one system white could play. It’s refreshing to have a clear division in an opening book. It’s easy to follow through the chapters, and their order makes a lot of sense too. King begins with the Rossolimo, the Alapin, and other common lines, and finishes with weird, rare stuff like the Wing Gambit, a3, Na3, and other almost nonsensical variations.

Each chapter begins with an introductory part and finishes with a conclusion that covers the main points that were addressed in the body and the annotations. Those are my two favorite parts of the chapters. They are concise, and they provide an easy guide into the strategic themes and tactical dangers of each variation. When it comes to the amount of lines shown, and the amount of annotations and explanations, I think the Anti-Sicilians could have been expanded a bit. Each chapter comes with a relatively brief overview of the opening, without going into specific games. The number of lines shown seems minimal in my opinion. King seldom chooses to delve deep into rare sidelines and focuses on what’s played most commonly almost in a straight line. This makes me think that the book is a solid introduction on how to play against the Anti-Sicilians, but it’s by no means enough of a resource to complete an opening repertoire.

That being said, his annotations are very good, and the lines that are covered are annotated and explained in a way that a 6 year-old could understand them and that a GM would find them useful. That’s a rare skill I love about Daniel King’s videos as well.

Personally, I have used it extensively while working on my own Sicilian repertoire (which I have finally started playing during the Trieste Open 2025 and won my first serious Sicilian as black in the Rossolimo!), but I have used it the same way I use De La Villa’s 100 Endgames, as the beginning, the skeleton, the basis. I have had to build on GM King’s recommendations to feel like I was ready to face Anti-Sicilians in a real game.

Perhaps the simplicity of the book will appeal to the majority of the audience. It may be insufficient for serious tournament players who may have to supplement it, but it will definitely be an easily digestible introduction to Anti-Sicilian variations for players of all levels.