1. Uhlmann He played the French forever and realy had some crushes with it.
now it gets hard for me
2.  Kortchnoi
3. Vaganian   
4. Botvinnik
5  Smbat   
6. Short
7 Morozevich    
8. M. Gurevich 
9. Khalifman    
10 V. Akobian 

10. Botvinnik I know this may sound nuts him being in the 10 spot but i am not a big winawer fan. His play was great but not my favorite of all time.
9.Short well what can i say shorts games are always fun to look at.
8.Korchnoi. Now i know on #10 i said i didnt like the winawer but i like korchnoi in general for his style. He is all about violence.
7. Petrosian was very reserved and played the french rather well. 
6. Akobian Hes young yet but i think his handeling of it is pretty good so far.
5.Rubinstien He was a man who played consistantly and i like that. he also has a variation named after him which is easy to learn but hard to master much like chess itself.
4.Alekhine well this man was also about violence and sacrifice. Before i fell in love with tals play this man right here was my inspiration.
3. David Bronstien who is not on the list but did much to further the french back in the day. As a matter of fact he played it agianst Botvinik him self. He was an amazingly talented player who was very close to winning the chess crown.
2. Shirov he is an inspiration to just about any one. His uncomprimising play along with his understanding of the french give him a high ranking in my book.
1.Morozevich He is my reason of playing the french as long as i did. his play is original. He brings back old ideas and makes some new ones. His play is uncomprimising to a point where he is just as happy to win quickly as he is to lose quickly when trying out a new idea. His play in the Burn variation with gxf6 (my favored line) is fun to watch and he has even beeten the likes of Judit Polgar with it. this alone is worth a high ranking. So this concludes my top ten which is quite fun in my opinion we whoul have one for every opening.

Quote:


Thanks again for this bit of interesting trivia.

@Smyslov_Fan
LOL! As I was bluffing, I was very curious if anyone would take up the challenge to prove me wrong. You will understand, that no reason is too bad for me to put my hero on any list.  

I do not know the first four games. Concerning Steinitz-Winawer, Wien ploff 1882, Winawer indeed played the French - but did not win the minimatch.
Hey Smyslov_Fan, I suspect that you are bluffing like me.  8)

@Woofwoof:
I do not know the explanation. But I do know, that Nimzo played the French only one time before 1910 and 7 times before WW-1. Nimzo was an arrogant guy with a big mouth (until he got humiliated by Alekhine in the early 30-ies), but as Rubinstein was not, this does not explain anything.
It is another fact, that Rubinstein played 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 (the Burn Variation) considerably more often than 3...dxe4.

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Thanks for the bit of info here MNb. But it does seem rather odd that the 1st 3..Bb4 was not invented by Nimzo but yet named after him (before being changed to Winawer) The same argument applies to Rubinstein.

Oh well.... I guess the explanation for the above is something like the following example. The NimzoIndian - Leningrad is now known as the Spassky System. Spassky didnt invent it, but played it a lot in his younger days & won some good games with it.

Rubinstein did not invent 3...dxe4. The first Rubinstein game with 3...dxe4 (1903) saw him playing White ...
Before Rubinstein played it, Bird, Delmar and Blackburne played it amongst others. Another example is Steinitz-Lasker, WCh m 1894, 8th game.
Nimzovitsj did not invent the 3.e5. Greco, Staunton and especially Louis Paulsen preceded.
Finally Nimzo was certainly not the first to play 3...Bb4. Just two examples are Esser-Marshall, Amsterdam 1911 and Réti-Euwe, Amsterdam 1920.
Both Rubinstein and Nimzo played the French less often than Alekhine and Spielmann. They being important players of the French defense is just an urban chess legend.

Spielmann is on my list, because he was the first to decide a tournament with the French: Semmering 1926. Moreover he was the first to play 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4 5.e5 h6 6.Be3 on a regular base- a rather topical line these days.
Finally I simply always prefer Spielmann above Nimzo and Rubinstein.
If it were a poll on say the QGD, Spielmann also be on my top 5  

1. Nimzovich (for practically inventing the Winawer)
2. Nimzovich (for practically inventing the Advance)
3. Botvinnik
4. Uhlmann
5. Korchnoi
6. Bareev

1. Korchnoi 
2. Volkov 
3. Morozevich
4. Uhlmann 
5. Vaganian
6. Bareev (for his contribution  to the Burn variation!)