FreeRepublic wrote on 09/25/23 at 20:18:23:


FreeRepublic - I've only looked around a bit in the Lemos book, so I can't express an informed opinion on it. Because of the omissions I mentioned in Reply #26, my initial impression tends to be bit less favorable compared to another Move by Move book, the one by Giddins on the French Winawer. This covers all of the major Winawer lines along with many sidelines.  I especially liked how Giddins handled the positional Winawer variations by tracing their development over time. In this respect, I was reminded of one of my favorite books, Chess from Morphy to Botvinnik by Imre König, which uses the same historical approach on the Ruy Lopez, Queen's Gambit, English Opening, and King's Gambit. 

Of course, this comparison is quite unfair to Lemos. I've read the Giddins book page by page and have seen the quality of his explanations and the thoroughness of his coverage. On the other hand, Lemos is trying to cover the entire French Defense in one volume.  He has to make some judicious choices on what to leave out.

FreeRepublic wrote on 09/24/23 at 22:07:00:

In the preface to his book, Lemos indicates he's not intending to present a complete repertoire. He adds that he's focused more on showing the main ideas in the various French variations, in the hope that this allows the reader to reach playable middle games.

That said, His chapter on the Tarrasch covers both 3...c5 and 3...Nf6.  The majority of the information (five games) is on 3...c5 with the black queen retreating to d7 after being hit by White's Bc4. You might recall that this ...Qd7 variation is also featured in The French Defense Revisited. The rest of Lemos' Tarrasch chapter is two games with 3...Nf6. The first (Kudrin-Korchnoi, Beersheva 1984) covers the main line after Bd3; i.e., 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.c3 c5 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.Ne2 cxd4 8.cxd4 f6 9.exf6 Nxf6 10.Nf3 Bd6. The second game with 3...Nf6 is the well-known Reshevsky-Vaganian, Skopje 1976, which features 5.f4. Lemos apparently doesn't cover the Universal System. It's not mentioned in the games with 3...Nf6, and a possible transposition via 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 4.Ngf3 Nf6 only has 5.exd5 Nxd5 (Van der Wiel-Korchnoi, Brussels SWIFT 1986). At this point, Lemos writes, "White has a lot of options in this position, but we are not going to analyze this game from a theoretical point of view. The middle game is what we are really interested in". This statement sums up his book's content. There are going to be gaps from a theoretical standpoint, such as the lack of anything on the Universal System or the main line Winawer, as I noted in Reply #24. This approach could also be why all the games I mentioned here date from the 70s or 80s. When there's no need for up-to-date theory, older games may be well suited to illustrate important themes.

FreeRepublic - Those C16 Winawer lines with 4...b6 and 4...Qd7 are also covered in Lemos' French Defence Move by Move (2021). In fact, those are the only ones he covers.  He simply says that readers who want to see anything on the Main Line Winawer should get another book! It's a bit of a cop out on his part since he's intending his book to be an overview of the French, yet he avoids a substantial chunk of one of its most important variations.

The variation discussed earlier in this thread (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 Ne7 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 b6) is also classified as C16. In his French Winawer: Modern and Auxiliary Lines (1979), Moles called it the Ivkov-Matulovic variation, adding that it was "a fairly popular line in the late '50s and early '60s, but one that has lapsed into oblivion today". It seemed to enjoy a bit of a revival around the time this thread was begun. Miedema spends a chapter on it in Volume 1 of his Modernized French Defense (2019), with the comment that "Black can achieve equality in most lines". However, he does admit that White gets the advantage in one particular line. He rationalizes the use of the line by asking what would be the chances that White players would analyze a sideline like 6...b6 so deeply.  His final comment on the line is "I would only recommend it as a surprise" for Black players who want to adopt the variation.

Maybe like Dom suggested. Qc7, followed by cxd4. Everything else is too passive indeed.
Remains a difficult variation for black to play.
I don`t like the Hook variation either. So it`s probably the poisoned pawn or back to 3...Nf6.

Accolon wrote on 07/30/12 at 21:38:16:

11...Bd7 seems to be a decent move (I like it), though never played in this exact position, so have a good luck with it! 
That's what I meant when I said that a lot of independent work was needed. 

Accolon wrote on 07/29/12 at 21:06:21:

Well, you have to do a lot of independent work on it. Here is a game that can give you some guides what kind of problems you may come across and have to be prepared for..

I want to add a correspondence chess game from 2008. I hope it can be useful for the discussion..

Not sure why you think black as serious problems. Why not standard idea Nc6-a5-c4, for example?