Sicilian Defense:Lasker-Pelikan Variation, Sveshnikov Variation

Named after Evgeny Sveshnikov, who turned the old Lasker–Pelikan into a main line in the 1970s. Magnus Carlsen used it in his 2018 world championship match.

It is reached after 16 moves: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3 b5. It is a line of the Sicilian Defense.

White is to move and has 43 legal moves. Over the next four moves — two for each side — the game can branch into 2,172,596 different games. Those games reach 694,951 different positions: most positions can be reached in more than one way, 3.1 on average.

The Lichess opening list names 4 further lines after this position, such as Chelyabinsk Variation (9. Nd5) and Novosibirsk Variation (9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Nd5 Bg7).