MartinC wrote on 07/26/14 at 15:26:38:


I like a lot this book: DW: The French. It's an "non-main-lines" variation book but you can build a repertoire "absolutely sound" based on:

- 5.Nh6 vs advance variation. Sharp (White often plays Bxh6 early), funny and sound.
- Guimard vs Tarrasch Nd2 variation
- vs 3.Nc3, you have 3...Nc6 (sharp, extrange but theoretically good enouhg)

Probably a bit too obscure. iirc DW: The French does have a section on 4.. Bf8, or the equivalent 3.. Nf6 ^ 4 .. Ng8

What you want is to find a bunch of old Petrosian games and marvel at how on earth black gets away with it. Mirror image KID set ups and things. Might not be entirely healthy for mortals to emulate!

I should have thought that the OP's criteria were best met by:

Advance, 3...b6
Winawer, 3...Bb4 4 e5 Bf8
Tarrasch; Leningrad v Universal and Bd3 system, 7 ....f5 against f4 systems (as Farago played in the 1970's).

I don't say these systems are the best, but if you want what the OP wants they'll work. I'm afraid there isn't a repertoire book advocating them AFAIK though.

I just want to make one point salient - 

For the money, PTF4 by John Watson, is the best bang for your money.

Only one book to buy for the best overall quantity and quality of material covered, written by an all time world authority on the French.
Now, a subscription to this website to John Watson's French section together with PTF4 is very hard to beat.   

The website has covered new grounds and touched upon old or known grounds and it does it superbly. 

You don't have to subscribed every month, but every once in a while come get the material posted here.  It is great, it is coming from Watson.

Well, if its possible while playing sound openings, then why not? For personal amusement/ curiosity mostly So much choice and whims like that are probably as sane a way to do it as anything else.

Ok, so a terrible idea if you're learning and have got put off by one bad experience or something. If you know what you're doing though, entirely sane.

I actually find it interesting to observe that you can build a fully sane repitoire where you'll normally get French pawn chains but will very rarely go f6 before move 10-15, and not that often afterwards.

I don't think you can do the same with c5. f6 clearly isn't as fundamental to blacks play.

I'd add things like 3.. a6/h6 vs the Tarrasch ^ Ngf3 Nf6, g5 etc and the 7.. Kf8 Winaver/McCutheon to that list you had above. Probably the 7.. Nf5 Winaver too. Various slightly older treatments of the positional winavers.

I would suggest Neil McDonald's book, How to Play Against 1e4 which TN mentioned.  I happily own this book and rate it highly although i have no intention to play or study the opening.
If you must have a life devoid of excitement McDonald's coverage of the Fort Knox variation is adequate.  As others have suggested you may find the play insufficiently "French", but i trust you will find it sufficiently boring given your criteria.

MartinC wrote on 06/26/14 at 13:39:50:


Where does this "must" come from? If we want to be/become strong players, we play what the position demands as often as possible. If we find ourselves sometimes avoiding the best move on principle or personal taste, that's already the wrong way to play chess. It's a form of self-handicapping.

If I were to construct a solid and slow-moving French repertoire, I would pick the Tarrasch with ...c5 and ...exd5, some Advance lines with ...Nge7-f5 and maybe the Winawer with 7...0-0 or 6...Qa5 (or the 3...dxe4 lines of course, but that's not really a French position type anymore). But even in those lines, you will sometimes get positions where ...f6 is the best move, perhaps well into the middlegame, and there's no point making up subjective reasons not to play it!

Actually you can basically play the Nimzo both happily and respectably with never taking on c3
(I think only 4 a3 gets near to forcing Bxc3+?)

Not totally off topic, because both the French and Nimzo are hugely flexible openings, which support enough ideas to let you avoid using some of them if you must.

For instance all those tarrasch lines with white going Ngf3 (sometimes induced by black 'wasting' a move) and black going g5. Black very rarely goes f6 in those.

I can't think how to sensibly avoid going c5 a lot though