agropop wrote on 02/23/12 at 17:44:48:

French Defence...revealed!?..     

Hello gentlemen. If I remember correctly, in recent CBM articles on French Advance, Moskalenko has shown clear refutation of the Black lines with either early ...Bd7. For the same reason he recommends attacking the d4 pawn directly, or playing the set-up as M. Gurevich 5...Nge7.

Krames wrote on 01/12/12 at 21:14:09:

That's a contradiction. Regardless its theoretical value the French is somewhat limited in ideas. It's always (OK, I'm exaggerating) playing against White's centre with ...c5 and ...f6.
Of course you can remedy this - and I forgot to mention it in my previous post - by playing completely different openings as White and against 1.d4. I am not that dogmatic in that respect.
Moreover 3...c5 4.exd5 exd5 and 3...a6 against the Tarrasch lead to completely different kind of positions as well. In fact, if you don't feel like taking up 1...e5 as Black I would recommend that.

Krames wrote on 01/12/12 at 21:14:09:

Piece activity. Which, how conveniently, is also the main point of 3.Nd2 c5 4.exd5 exd5 and 3...a6.

Krames wrote on 01/12/12 at 21:14:09:

Emms' repertoire book (imo the most active) is not that big, about 200 pages. Then you'll only need something against the Ruy Lopez, though I'll admit that that is quite difficult.

Now if you indeed decide to stick to the French, but abandon the Rubinstein (which I applaud), buy Uhlmann's Französisch, Richtig gespielt. You might have to make an effort to understand the German, but you will have excellent explanations by an expert.

I agree with MNb's general advice about what to play as a 1500-1600 player whose main goal is to improve.

However, there are many reasons to play chess. If you're more or less comfortable with your rating and you just want to play the French, then play the French and have fun! It's certainly one of my absolute favorite openings.

I haven't read Williams' book, but the comments here make it sound like a good buy. Of course, there's also John Watson's classic series Play the French. (I call it a series because in each edition, he has gone out of his way to include lines that were not previously covered. Each book has a slightly different emphasis. This isn't always due to the previous lines being busted, but because Watson is trying to give his readers some choices.)

There is no need to play the Winawer in a chaotic way. The Black Queen Blues 6...Qa5 is quite solid. In fact I found it hard to create winning chances with it: four solid draws in corr. chess.
To a 1500-1600 player I would say though: play 1...e5 and master the Two Knights.
After comparing the Williams book with the Moskalenko book I intend to try a slightly different approach against the Advance. 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7
-6.Bd3 cxd4 7.cxd4 Qb6 is just the Milner-Barry Gambit, which in my opinion gives insufficient compensation.
-Williams makes quite a strong point for 6.a3 f6!
-Thus 6.Be2 is strongest and then Qb6 7.O-O (or 7.a3) Nh6 is interesting. In the 6...Nh6 lines the Bishop is useful on d7 as well. Also worth considering is 6.Be2 Qb6 7.a3 c4 avoiding the fianchetto lines.

huibui wrote on 09/15/11 at 13:45:01:


Agreed, the correct move order would be to play 5 Nf3 first. It's also by far the most common move.

Alternatives being 5 a3, 5 Be3, 5 f4 as well as 5 Bd3.

MNb wrote on 09/14/11 at 20:33:26:



As Grishuk demonstrated in the World Cup, taking on d4 with the Knight is also possible, particularly if you don't want to sacrifice a pawn in a well known line.

I think it's actually a bit rock paper scissors.

Rock: Black plays ...Qb6 first: white can delay Nf3 and play a3, and unless Black wants to go Nc6, he's stuck not having forced Nf3, which may or may not be an improvement for White.

Paper: Black plays 4...Nc6 first: White will generally respond with Nf3, so that he can meet ...Qb6 with a2-a3.

Scissors: Black plays ...Bd7 first: White need not play either Nf3 or a3, and the lack of pressure on d4 means that 5 Bd3 is suggested.

In the position arising after 

1.e4 e6
2.d4 d5
3.e5 c5
4.c3 Qb6,

I have three things to comment on:

A) If black wants to avoid the sharp c4!? variations (where the white player accentuates that Bd7-b5 is a rather time wasting maneuver in the resulting transformed position), he has to take first on d4, as previous posts have already mentioned. Alas, White retakes with the Knight (!), preventing the initial Bb5 idea. Giving up d4 is not a problem, the inclined reader will notice the similarities to the variation 4...Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Be2 Qb6, when white has good prospects after taking on c5 (either now or after O-O, not fearing cxd4 cxd4 Nge7 -> f5 because of the standard defensive resource Nc3-a4).

A recent high-class encounter in this variation was fought out in Grischuk - Morozevich in the current World Cup tournament.

B) After 4...Nc6, the first player usually goes for 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.a3!. Out of this reasoning, the first player is well advised o go for 

4...Qb6 5.a3!?

As the queen is already on b6, the white player will not get into transposition problems to Bd7 lines, which are considered harmless (i.e. 4..Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.a3?! (6.Le2) and now either f6 or c4 give black enough play). White achieves two things by this seemingly harmless move, both being connected with the move "won" by not having moved the Ng1 yet. First, White can speed up the counterplay on the c-file, preventing the white square clamp that black often tries to establish. Moreover, the f1-a7 diagonal is not as appealing for the black queen anymore, as white can easily castle following Ng-e2. Finally, black will not be able to overload white's defence of d4 due to the time consuming bishop trade. Hence white does not have to put his knight on f3 anyway. In my opinion, he is good advised to put his knight on the strategically most lucrative square, which is h5. 

In a recent rapid game played by myself two days ago against a 2350 FM, play continued 

4...Qb6
5.a3!? Bd7
6.b4 cxd4
7.cxd4 Bb5
8.Bxb5 Qxb5 
9.Nc3 Qd7 (Qc4/c6 stumbles into a swift Rc1, Qb6 lacks the punch as d4 will not get into pressure and grants white a tempo by the means of Na4)
10.Nge2 Ne7
11.Nf4! and the threat of Nh5, putting pressure on the vital dark squares, forced black to continue with 11..g6, which already gives white some weaknesses to play against. After

12.h4!? (Nd3 -> Bg5 is also very interesting) Bg7 
13.h5 Nc6
14.O-O O-O-O
15.Bb2 Kb8 
16.Nd3! b6
17.a4! Nxd4
18.a5 -> 

White enjoyed quite an advantage, eventually converting his dangerous initiative into a full point.

It should be added that 4...Qb6 5.a3!? c4?!, despite being played twice against me in tournament games by players around 2100, is IMHO an inaccurate move order. With the knight still on g1, white has more freedom on the kingside, and can utilize this in several ways (e.g. an easy f4). 

C) Sadly, somewhere in this post I forgot the third point I wanted to address.

Cheers,

Geck0

yes, the idea of 6.Be2 is to prevent the immediate ...Bb5, which 6.Bd3 allows.

kylemeister wrote on 07/21/11 at 22:26:24:



Sorry, just went to bed and started thinking about it. It was against Jonathan Westeberg iirc. He is the Swedish junior Champ I think. Against Berg it was the Najdorf. A big crushing home prep with a knight sac at b5.

After 6 ...a5, White can probably play Bd3 and argue that he gets a better version of the Barry-Milner gambit since he has access to the b5-square.

An old idea, that was played by Jonny Hector (he has 4,5/5 in this line after 7 ...Bd7) just the other day against Emanuel Berg is 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6. Bd3 cxd4 7. 0-0!? Here most Black players have transposed into more regular lines with 7 ...Bd7, instead of taking on c3. Apparently, he has also played the same line, with 5 ...Bd7 instead of 5 ...Nc6. This has only occured in one game against a player sub-2000, though.

What do you think about this gambit?

dom wrote on 07/21/11 at 11:00:35:


I checked the line at home and I am pretty sure the line is NOT in Harding's book....but...there is one good system for Black (I always try to give Black good lines  )

7.oo Qb6 and now

A) 8.Qe2 Nge7!? (instead of dxc3 ; Stets-Malykin,Pavlograd 2000) and now White has no better than enter the Millner Barry with cx4 because:

9.a3 (Garcia-Cardenas Serrano, La Havanne 1991) Ng6

9.Kh1 Ng6 10.cxd4 Nxd4 11.Nxd4 Qxd4 12.f4 Bc5

9.Rd1 dxc3 (Flitney-Baider, 2007)

Ng8-Ne7-Ng6 plan is less known than Ng8-Ne7-Nc6 

B) 8.Re1 Nge7 and White has no better than transposition to line Millner Barry with Re1 after 9.cxd4 Nxd4

C) 8.a3 Nge7 (Garcia-Huerta,La Havanne 1992) 9.b4 Ng6 or 9.cxd4 Nxd4 with an improved Millner Barry (because White lost tempo with a3)

D) 8.Nbd2 dxc3 (only now...since b1 knight has moved to not so active square)

@orangeCounty : you are totally right in saying that ...Bb5 is not forced in the mentioned line. It is a warning to the original poster, since ...Bb5 was Black's primary goal. Moreover ...Bb5 becomes less and less feasable as White develops, for instance 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.a3 a5 7.Be2 a4 (seizing space and preventing Qb3) 8.0-0 Bb5? 9.c4 dxc4 10.Nbd2 is ideal for White.

The "third setup" Bd7/Nc6 without Qb6 is an important line. Here a3 wastes tempo and Bd3 leads to a gambit, so White often plays Be2 at once.  

[off-topic] The gambit itself 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Bd3 cxd4 7.0-0 [instead of the standard 7.cxd4 Qb6 8.0-0 Nxd4] 7...dxc3 Nxc3 makes wonders in blitz, it could be labelled a "dangerous weapon". Has it been discussed here or in chess litterature?

Note that White can also play with a3, which is never wrong against ...Qb6 lines.
 
For instance 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6/Bd7 5.Nf3 Bd7/Qb6 6.a3 Bb5 7.b4 cxd4 8.Bxb5 Qxb5 9.cxd4 Nd7 10.Nc3. Here Black can't really dominate the a6-f1 diagonal with 10...Qa6 due to White's slow but effective plan of Bd2,a4,b5 (or Nb5). 10...Qc4 is not advisable either, because White can regroup with e.g. Bb2, Ne2,Nd2, Rc1. Perhaps 10...Qc6 11. Na4 is simplest, with an equalish game. You may want to play 6...a5 to prevent b4, but beware of the trap 7.Be2 Bb5? (7...Nc6 is normal) 8.Qb3 c4 9.Qc2 ruining your plans.

As for White playing an early Nf3, this is for the sake of simplicity. Black has 3 basic setups in the Advance : Bd7/Nc6, Qb6/Nc6, Qb6/Bd7. White wants to react differently against each one, for instance a3 is more effective against Qb6 and Be2 is more effective against Bd7. But in all cases Nf3 is part of his setup, so it is played first, waiting for Black to commit. Black in turn can play ball with Nh6, but this is another story.

Welcome to the difficult world of the French Advance!  

I've found that the Wade Variation usually confuses players up to ~1900 strength (USCF). Beyond that, it's still sound(ish), but nothing special. 

I like to play Qb6 and Bd7 and only then decide whether to play Nc6. The threat of the Wade will get strong players thinking more about their move orders. Keres and Barcza believed that 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Bd3?! cd4 7.cd4 was already equal, with Black having excellent practical chances to gain an advantage. (ECO 1981)

Thanks for all of the responses . . .
I just got back from the park (Bryant Park in NYC) and had a pretty good run in a few blitz games using this line. I'm going to find out as much as I can about this variation, it feels pretty "natural" to me and I got a few wins today with the black pieces. Full disclosure - I had a WON GAME with the white pieces in a Closed Sicilian against a MUCH stronger player, and I blew it. . . .

An interesting move is 6.Nbd2 f6!?
Black wants to keep a Ba4 pin and removal of e5 pawn.
Maybe White has to change for a Millner Barry (Nun sub var) plan giving specific position 7.Bd3 Nc6 8.oo cxd4 9.cxd4 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 Qxd4 11.Nf3

Yes, "Wade variation [C02]" if Black doesn't play Nc6 and prefers an early Bb5.

White has one main system with Be2/Bd3 and then Zaitsev's move c4!? in some lines. Usually followed by dxc4 and after the d4 pawn can move forward. Some authors advice an early cxd4 for Black to counter this plan.

Alternate and mode modern strategy is maybe for White to play 6.Nbd2!? with two ideas: to play c4 vs Bb5 or to play Nb3, with a good blockade square on d4 after a later dxc5. Eingorn and Sveshnikov's books about French Advance gave very good ideas in that line (I recall that Sveshnikov advices for the Advance French).

Welcome to the Chess Pub Krames!

This is called the "Wade Variation". There are already several threads discussing this variation. While you're welcome to start a new thread, you may also want to peruse some of the older threads for answers to your questions.

Here's a link to one of the most recent discussions:

http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1296745190/15