My Friend The Sicilian* One cannot just consider the role and significance of the opening stage of a game in the modern chess struggle in isolation. Experience has shown thai the results of the opening battle, with one of the sides winning even a small positional or material advantage in the early stages, can be transformed by the pure technical equipment of the skilled chessplayer to be a determining influence on t Ik whole course of subsequent events, carrying on into the middlcgame,and at times, the endgame. Figuratively speaking, the opening is the seed, the shoots of which grow on every part of ihc chessboard and yield the harvest in complete dependence on the original groundwork.