Hello all.

I am traditionally a Sicilian Dragon/Najdorf guy that loved the "Swearing in Church" chapter from DW French Defence, and have taken up the line with good results. 

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nc6!? and now,

4.e5 f6!? is the line I wish to discuss. 

Usually blacks idea is to play Bd7, Qe7, Qf7, O-O-O, then attack Whites centre and K-side with f6/g5 etc. White often is trying to play on that side as well for the pawn push f5, so I find it safe, yet solid and complex, all while still being fairly unorthodox. Cool defence.

I played a nice game against IM Naing (now living in Burma!)over the Chess.com server tonight in said line that had some nice ideas. In the end it our match score was 7-4 in favor of him, but our only draw was clearly winning for myself, I was just running out of time so I took the 3-fold and was happy with my overall result. This was my favorite game as it contained both nice strategic ideas in a new line(3...Nc6 French vs 3.Nc3) and some nice tactics.

Enjoy! 

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2011.01.10"]
[White "burmaking"(IM Myo Naing)]
[Black "TheMerovingian"]
[Result "0-1"]
[TimeControl "3|0"]
[Termination "TheMerovingian won by checkmate"]

1.e4 Nc6 2.Nc3 e6 3.d4 d5 4.e5 f6 5.Bb5 Bd7 6.Bxc6 Bxc6 7.f4 Qe7 8.Nf3 Qf7 9.O-O Ne7 10.b4 b6
11.a4 a5 12.b5 Bd7 13.Ne2 Nf5 14.Kh1 Be7 15.g4 Nh6 16.exf6 gxf6 17.h3 Rg8 18.Rg1 O-O-O 19.Ng3 Bd6 20.Be3 Rde8 21.Qd2 e5 22.fxe5 Nxg4 23.hxg4 fxe5 24.Nxe5 Bxe5 25.dxe5 Bxg4 26.Kh2 Rxe5 27.Bf4 Re2+ 28.Nxe2 Qh5+ 29.Kg2 Bxe2+ 30.Kf2 Qf3+
31.Ke1 Rxg1# 0-1

Merovingian