But castling does avoid blundering you kingside pawns Black surely hardly ever goes o-o after 6.. Qa5 -> a4? Personally I don't understand why anyone ever castle queenside in the Winaver as black  

Mind you the lines I use in after 7..o-o (8.. Nc6, Qc7 and 11.... Nce7) is dependent on a massive sea of very random tactics to hang together, so could be 'fun' vs specifically prepared players. 8.. f5 is rather more rational of course.

Also there is the 7...0-0 Winawer. It can lead to relatively sharp but balanced positions if you neither enjoy an extremely positional game nor an extremely sharp game (7...Qc7). There are enough lines within the Winawer complex for a viable French repertoire.

BPaulsen wrote on 08/31/11 at 11:03:54:

No, not present tense, but past tense. You just convinced me to stick to the Winawer.

BPaulsen wrote on 08/31/11 at 04:40:12:

4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 a6 8.Qd2 b5 9.h4 b4 10.Na4 Qa5 11.Nxc5 Nxc5 12.dxc5 Bxc5 13.Bxc5 Qxc5 14.h5 h6 15.Qf2 and here I lost after Qe7 16.o-o-o a5 17.f5 o-o 18.Bb5. After 15...Qa5 Black is allright and has decent counterplay.
I lost another game after 9.Be2 b4 10.Nd1 a5 11.c4 but won one after 9.g3 thanks to White's abysmal play.

MNb wrote on 08/31/11 at 02:30:54:


Losing after 4. Bg5 Be7 isn't unusual. I've said my piece about that line on here just recently.

4. e5 is another matter. Black should be able to escape death easier there.

Quote:


When white castles short black has to limit his ambitions to equality barring a major white error. That's also the downside to white's chosen method of play - white has also limited his own ambitions.

At one point I was writing an e-book that gets into this very issue, but stopped writing it because Watson is supposed to do a 4th "Play the French" in the near future, and the French market is oversaturated as it is right now. Maybe one of the books will get into the significant differences between white playing 0-0-0 and 0-0 beyond the superficial stuff like black is less likely to get mated.

Quote:


Being a correspondence player so long as you have the correct theoretical antidotes that really shouldn't ever happen.

What particular line did you get posed problems in? The only line that has opposite-sided castling that requires black to think outside the box a little is when white plays Nb3 (if black knows the idea even that's easy to handle). Other than that, so long as black doesn't push his luck there it shouldn't be a problem.

BPaulsen wrote on 08/31/11 at 00:52:11:

I know; I still took the liberty to answer. That's what a forum is for.

BPaulsen wrote on 08/31/11 at 00:52:11:

Even though one game began with 4.e5 and another with 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.Bxe7 I lost twice in similar ways: I played a la the Sicilian with ..a6 and b5, White castled short, I had equalized, thought I could initiate more counterplay on the Queenside and got mated. That was very depressing.
At the other hand in my last four games with the Winawer I equalized, did not get too much counterplay but did not get mated either.
Now I wonder what this tells about my (lacking) chess skills, because I realize very well this is more or less contrary to the general view on 3...Nf6 and 3...Bb4. So this makes me quite insecure. Do I understand zilch about the French? But why do I have such fine results against the Tarrasch and the Advance then? If it weren't for this (and because I want to play 1.d4 e6) I would have given up the French long ago.
At least I understand that I'm not a typical Frenchie, whatever that may mean.

Note: I do know now what I did wrong in those two 3...Nf6 games. That doesn't solve the mystery though: I am tempted to return to 3...Nf6 in order to create more winning chances as Black!

Note 2: my memory deceives me for the zillionth time. I actually lost three games with 3...Nf6. In an older one White castled Queenside and still my counterplay came too late.

BPaulsen wrote on 08/30/11 at 23:26:37:

In my results in actual games.

BPaulsen wrote on 08/30/11 at 23:26:37:

As I wrote before I use of the Winawer to avoid losing. 

My main weapon is Sicilian Najdorf, but in these days I am seriously thinking to not choose the French as my second one. Actually 3. Nc3 is giving me hard times and causing too many headaches, maybe it's time to study the more correct 1...e5 although my first intention was to have a semi-open + 1...c5.