was not a great French fan ol Mihail

I may be alone on this one but I always put in the same category the Sicilian, French and Caro-Kann. I consider them all as (i) 1st-rate defences, and (ii) counter-attacking systems (e.g. in contrast to playing the Ruy Lopez). In my mind a simplistic distinction between them goes as follows:

1. In terms of timing of the counterattack: Sicilian (quickest) > French (quick enough) > C-K (slowish)
You can also think of the above as "number of moves you have to stay in defence before you strike back", again less moves needed by the: Sicilian > French > C-K

2. In terms of solidity: the other way round

Of course as I said this is a fairly simplistic approach. 

P.S.: Off-topic - Just a broad positional consideration: In all 3 defences the c5-break is thematic. This is usually central in most Black counterattacking openings vs. 1. e4. The Sicilian achieves it at move 1, the French around move 5 and the C-K, well sometime in the long run!

Fischer also struggled against 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 in simuls. (Look it up! )

I have no problem accepting that the French is a difficult defense to play well, and that it isn't particularly popular at elite levels. But then we see someone like Agdestein use it to good effect against players 100 rating points above him. There's plenty to be said in favor of the French even if it's not quite as rich in counter-chances as the Sicilian or other lines.

How Fischer or Carlsen or Kasparov fared against the opening doesn't really persuade me of the merits of that line.

Lauri Torni wrote on 06/13/14 at 09:50:01:



So your argument is that because recent World champions have not had the French in their repertoire then it is a second-class opening.

One interesting point, the best player of all time imo - Bobby Fischer, had significant problems playing against the French. Relative to his results against other openings of course!

I think that clear souls with healthy positional style just do not play the french.
It is interesting, that e.g. recent world champions have played the french only accidentally - Spassky, Fisher, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand (excluding some -dxe4 stuff)

I have played the french with decent results for a long time, but have always found it somehow antipositional  and unintuitive.

If you want to discuss the Sicilian, please go to the Sicilian section.

Keano wrote on 05/28/14 at 12:11:02:


I think we should have a separate thread to discuss this matter   

Although I am a patzer, I think that the problem (if there is any) with the French is that it is more difficult to play for black than for white . You have les space, yo have a bishop to think about, usually you finished with an isolated pawn. Perhaps this is the reason why some people think 1...e5 or 1...c5 is better