This reminds me of reading how it became fashionable in the 1980s for US businessmen to read Musashi's book ¨Five rings¨ to get an insight into the supposed Japanese psyche. Problem - samurai were rubbish at commerce. 

Moral of the tale - seminal at the time, duly accorded respect, but there is more to know now. Knowledge does move on, indeed.

RdC wrote on 06/26/14 at 10:23:29:

nestor wrote on 06/26/14 at 08:28:04:


It is possible to avoid playing f6 by playing dxe4 at an early stage. White can escape this by playing the Advance, the Exchange or the Kings Indian Attack. 

I seem to recall some material on the "Fort Knox", being a plan where you take on e4, then play Bc8-d7-c6. When the e4 Knight moves, you take the Knight on f3 (if there is one) and play c6. You then have a Caro formation with your light square Bishop off the board. I thought someone, Andrew Martin perhaps, did a book on this once, but perhaps it was only a video.

There's an article on the chesscafe.com site
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kaiss61.pdf
which refers back to material on chesspub.com
http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1280902611/all

It's an unfortunate fact that anyone trying to avoid sharp play is going to have to adopt unambitious lines. This can easily become a strategy where you draw with White, no matter how much you outrank the opposition and lose with Black except where White is also following a risk adverse strategy.

I also endorse Watson's book. You may want to know that he covers the Winawer (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4) and the MacCutcheon (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4), both of which are very sharp in many lines.

Another very good recent repertoire book is Playing the French by Aargard and Ntirlis. They cover the classical French with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7, which is generally a calmer proposition than the Winawer and the MacCutcheon.

If you want to play the French, I can only urge you to overcome any aversion to playing ...f6. Dismantling White's d4, e5 centre with ...c5 and ...f6 is fundamental to the defence. Find some good thematic games where Black succeeds with this plan and pushes White off the board with the newly liberated d and e pawns; you won't look back.

Lastly, I have only ever seen a very few books in which the board diagrams are flipped, and none of these are on the French.

Marc Benford wrote on 06/25/14 at 23:34:05:


I have been playing the French for more than fifteen years, all my chess career. And the pawn break f6 is a necessary part of Black's strategy in the majority of variations, according to modern theory. Without it, White is OK and we don't want that...

If you don't attack white center your position will be reduced to a passive defence. French Defence is not only a solid opening (it is, obviously) but a counterattacking one. Your CA appears not as quick as in the Sicilian but if you don't search for them... bad thing: packed with a bad bishop in a passive position, no space...

Another story is maybe you have seen some Advance variations where this f6 advance comes very very quickly, you get a lot of active chances but without this f-pawn on the board your king will feel a little unsecured, on even uncastled, resting in d7 or f7 squares, Queen on h5, bishop on d3... Risk vs reward.

John Watson advocates in his books for active measures against white center and space advantage, involving quick f6 in some lines. His "Play the French" series are like a Bible on the French, lots of possibilities for White covered, I think that books are the most complete in that way. But, I repeat, active ones, with lots of f6 breaks in his lines. By the way, French defence IS that sometimes.

Vitiugov and Antic&Maksimovic are more advanced books, their analysis are outstanding but with not a lot of explanations.

Finally, Ntirlis & Aagaard book "Playing the French" is maybe the most educational one. His analysis are not as exhaustives and "ad infinitum" as Vitiugov ones (the are very good already, of course) but the explanations of ideas and moves are simply superb. The lines Nikos advocates are classical enough that I think would sweet you the best according to your initial post. My reccomendation for you.

Salut,

Hello.

I am looking for one or more books about the French Defence which fits these 3 conditions:

- It must offer a complete Black repertoire. It must cover the French Defence from the point of view of Black only. (I don't care about playing the French Defence as White since I don't play 1. e4) So I would like that the diagram boards in the book show Black at the bottom (ie. with the board flipped).

- The Black repertoire proposed in the book must (on average) tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, quiet and strategic as possible. I want as few sharp and tactical lines as possible.

- If possible, I would like that the repertoire tries to avoid playing the Pawn break ...f7-f6 (except when it's totally necessary).

Thanks in advance for your answers.