Arnaudov wrote on 02/10/20 at 23:03:47:


None of the ones you list!

The French is best known for its blocked center and play on the wings.  Pawn chains, and attacking in the direction in which the pawns point are key to the French Defense, hence White's Kingside attack and Black's Queenside play with no real central counterplay.

The solution is to go with the d4-opening that also leads to the blocked center, the King's Indian Defense!

The King's Indian plays the same way as the French.  The center is blocked, and the play is on the wings.  Each side attacks the side to which their pawns point, and so White will go for a Queenside attack and Black a Kingside attack in the Mar Del Plata.

There are also many former GMs that played both defenses.  Top of the list would be Wolfgang Uhlmann.  Another big name would be Igor Glek.


As far as playing White, I would suggest sticking with 1.e4.  There are lots of lines similar in nature, maintaining a fairly closed position.  These include:

Advance vs Caro-Kann
Whatever line you understand most against the French
Closed Sicilian
Slow Italian
3.f3 against the Pirc, leading to a Saemisch King's Indian
3.c4 against the Modern

Keano wrote on 08/09/21 at 18:34:56:

The Stonewall Dutch pairs well with the positional Winawer lines and c4 against the a3 Advance.  I would agree with everyone else that the Bogo/Nimzo or QGD/Nimzo pair with the more dynamic lines (e.g., MacCutcheon and 3. . . . c5 Tarrasch).

The King's Indian has the blocked center and fixed Black pawn breaks; the Nimzo Saemisch has the Winawer's loss of the dark-square bishop for doubled c-pawns; the QGD has the bad black bishop; even the Benoni has the queenside attack of the Classical.

But is it such a secret? Nothing really feels like the French pawn-chain variations.

Stonewall Dutch, on the grounds that it is the queen-pawn defense with the worst "bad bishop" problem.  Young Botvinnik paired French and Stonewall Dutch.
The bad news is that you have a bad bishop.  The good news is that you have a middlegame plan: exchange or improve the bad bishop.  Chess is so easy sometimes.

bragesjo wrote on 06/26/20 at 15:47:23:


I had this problem too. My solution (OTB and online) is
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.c4 dxc4 4.e3 Bg4
and I can play setups without e6 against the
Queens Pawn specials.

This QGA-line is covered in 
Delchev - Semkov
Understanding the Queen's Gambit Accepted.

The Armenian GM's who played French used to always go for the QGD against 1.d4, I heard Danny King commenting that this was also a good combination

RoleyPoley wrote on 06/25/20 at 08:21:20:
Precisely.

Mtal wrote on 06/24/20 at 03:30:50:
But the people who play London or Colle setups against your Dutch aren't going to enter complex theoretical lines against the Semi-Slav; they're going to play London or Colle setups against that too.


RoleyPoley wrote on 06/25/20 at 08:21:20:
This seems like a good solution, because if you do learn, say, the Semi-Slav, you're not solving the problem that's bothering you at the moment, you're just shifting it onto different territory.