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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SHEHAN_GIWANTHA" data-source="post: 24842024" data-attributes="member: 496236">If you're playing a Sicilian Defense, are you the black or white pieces?This is one of those questions where the answer is simple but the way players describe their games confuses the issue. Technically all defenses are played by the Black pieces, since it is White who opens hostilities and the second player who responds. (Although particularly tame systems for White are sometimes derisively, and jokingly, referred to as "defenses", e.g. the "Colle Defense". ) So it is always Black who *plays* the Sicilian Defense, in the sense that it is he who ultimately steers the game in that direction. White invites many defenses when he opens 1.e4, among them the very popular Sicilian; when Black replies 1...c5 he officially stamps the game a "Sicilian Defense".But at the risk of stating the obvious: even if Black chooses to make the game a Sicilian Defense, both players end up *playing* the game. Thus it's perfectly normal to hear things like "I played a sharp Sicilian" or "so-and-so had some great games in the French [Defense]", where in both cases the speaker might well be referring to the player of the *White* pieces. (A very common follow-up question to these statements is "with White or Black?")Sometimes openings are described by the choices White finally makes (King's Gambit, Torre Attack, Spanish, Italian etc) and sometimes by the choices Black finally makes (Benko Gambit, King's Indian Defense, French Defense, Grunfeld etc). Over time, this has proved the most convenient way to talk about the opening phase of chess. Everyone understands implicitly which player has final say in "choosing" each particular opening.</blockquote>

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