Thanks.  I recall Ametanoitos (Ntirlis) favoring 9...f6, which also got a positive mention by Psakhis back in 1992 (The Complete French).

I wish he had chosen 4...exd5 in the Tarrasch. It is becoming more popular again with some new ideas. 4...Dxd5 however, whilst very good theoretically, is becoming riddled with opening theory and long lines.

I get quite annoyed at the strange fancy writing that he uses. Why not say literally what he wants to say instead of the poetic language ¿ 

My copy arrived only some hours ago and I‘m no expert for these systems, neither a Frenchie nor an 1e4 attacker

The usual „entertaining and inspiring“ language and work from Lakdawala, the level IMO more Move-by-Move than Opening Repertoire...

At the Anti-Winawers there’s nothing about the Winckelmann-Reimer-Gambit 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 dxe4 6.f3?! This gambit might be risky, dubious or bad but it‘s certainly dangerous to encounter this totally unprepared over the board ...

In the Qd5 Tarrasch the sacrificial line 11.Re1 Qc7 12.Bb3 Bd6 13.Nf5 is covered well but 12.Bf1 (as played on highest level and recommended by Shaw2018) not at all.

In the Exchange Variation Lakdawala ignores some warnings from Berg2015 concerning 4.Nf3 Bd6 5.Bd3 Nc6 6.0-0 Nge7 7.c3 Bg4 8.Re1 Qd7 9.Nbd2 0-0-0?!

Advance, KIA, 2Knights and minor variations seem okay.

Well, the b6/Qd7 Winawer ... I‘m no expert on this and computer evaluation (strongly favouring White) might count for something or not.
I tried to compare with Negi but that comparison was very difficult ( especially in short time). The system is very transpositional, besides Lakdawala‘s coverage is more about „ideas, plans, manoeuvres and structure“ with several move orders but Lakdawala not recommending one of them ( to be fair, Negi often restricts himself to exemplary lines calling everything else „similar“). I’m not sure if Lakdawala built a solid repertoire move-ordering Negi or if Lakdawala has no ideas against Negi and just fixed the coverage in a way that doesn’t cross Negi‘s move order?! In short time I found only one example where Lakdawala explicitly ignores Negi:
(Game16 Eliseev-Fedoseev 2016) 4.e5 Qd7 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 b6 7.Qg4 f5 8.Qg3 Ba6 9.Bxa6 Nxa6 10.Ne2 Nb8 11.Nf4 Kf7 
and here Lakdawala only has 12.Qf3 while Negi (other move order, p.202 right coloumn) recommends 12.Nh5!?

For sure a much deeper investigation is necessary with better analysts than me, but for now and on the whole I wouldn’t trust Lakdawala that his systems are really promising to play on higher levels against preparation!?

But who am I ?!

tracke

Perhaps this complex 4...b6/4...Dd7 is getting more popular. I am going over some lines from French database of Marin:

https://www.modern-chess.com/en/chess-databases/database=41

I tend to trust Marin in opening theory, since he has wrotten excellent books throughout history. I doubt that he would have recommended this line if there had been some problem therewith.

Both Marin and Lakdawala recommend 5. Dg4 Af8, I am interesting to see how they compare with each other. Often Black tries to play some strange Advance-hybrid by ...Cge7->...Cf5 plus ...h5. Then trying to swap on a6 sometimes. Looks like an interesting setup to me.

kylemeister wrote on 01/18/19 at 04:49:18:


In the database of Marin that I bought, he recommends 6...Ad7 here. Then Black can try to play for ...c5 without wasting tempi.

Oops on the excerpt.

I take it "+= with best play" has been the usual view of this stuff.   I see that a blurb for a 2013 CBM article on 4...Qd7 said that Leonid Kritz shows how White obtains a [slight?] advantage with precise play.  I presume that Negi in his book of the following year thought White could obtain a [slight?] advantage.

Sample (Leseprobe) at
https://www.schachversand.de/de/the-french-defence-18935.html

...including a fraction of the main line Winawer chapter, which starts with two Petrosian games from the '50s.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 01/18/19 at 02:54:36:

There is 11...Kf7.
IIrc there is another problem line; I'll have to look it up. I'd love to regain confidence in 4...Qd7.

A bit from Watson (Aug. 2017 update):  "Black’s systems with ...b6 instead of ...c5 always have a minor following, and recently we’ve seen a surprising number of games with 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 e5 b6 (or here 4...Qd7 intending ...b6). Vaganian is one of the faithful adherents to this strategy, but after decades of playing it, he inexplicably fell into one of the worst variations in Morozevich, A -Vaganian,R, Biel 2017. After 5 a3 Bf8!?, White played 6 Bb5+! c6 7 Ba4.  It’s worth knowing this maneuver: the plan is Nce2, c3, and Bc2, and there’s little that can be done to stop it."