an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 05/23/21 at 17:28:15:

He/she shouldn't even try, with or without scare quotes.
Btw Black has a very easy game after 8...Qxf5 iso the more ambitious 8...Nxf5.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 05/23/21 at 17:28:15:

Black can do better as the game transposes to Samblic-Jurkovic, Bizovac 2006 with 10...Qd7 11.Nbd2 f6. GM Fishbein can say what he wants, with this move Black controls square e5 forever. Here Black also has a slight lead in development while White has to make a decicion: 12.b4 O-O, 12.Nf1 O-O-O. It seems to me that the fairly neutral 12.a4 maintains equality. As Black I would be pretty confident against a weaker opponent though; in this sense Black has won the opening battle.
But White has several better moves than 10.Qd3: 10.a4 (idea 11.Na3), 10.Ne5  and 10.Qb3 should all be fine without pretending an opening edge.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 05/23/21 at 17:28:15:

I am not surprised. Yet 6...Nge7 was already played by Nimzovitch in 1927 and 7...Bf5 more than ten times in the previous century.
Thanks for confirming my thoughts on GM Fishbein as expressed in previous comments.

MNb wrote on 05/23/21 at 06:23:23:

Which book is Moskalenko's latest? Fishbein has in his bibliography Moskalenko (2015) The Even More Flexible French.

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5

Spraggett says "!". For some strange reasons I am interested in this line for white. One contributor is an important tournament I played as a junior, which I won because of three games in the Exchange French, none of which involved me! In the second one, the top-ranked player was held to a draw, later allowing me to finish 1/2-point in first. Yet objectively the move deserves "?!" because it gives away all white's positional advantage and reduces it strictly to the first move. It's an uncommon case of an opening I have looked at a lot, yet played hardly ever. However it's not completely a wasted effort -- my record on the black side of the Exchange French is outstanding.

3...exd5 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.c3

Fishbein has

• 5.Bb5 - 6 games
• 5.c3/5.Bd3 - 3 games
• 5.Nc3!? - 3 games
• 5.h3!? - 1 game

This is the only place in the book, except for the Introduction (chapter 1), where he gives more than one line for white. I speculate that previously he played 5.Bb5 and now he doesn't really have an answer.

5.Bd3 Bg4 6.O-O Bd6 Fressinet - Short move order, I was sure must have been a typo, or a double-inaccuracy in a rapid game, but no: 6...Nxd4 7.Qe1+ Ne6 8.Ne5 +=. Should the GM have mentioned this? Perhaps he just expects *all* his readers to be able to figure this out with an engine's help.

5...Bd6 6.Bd3 Nge7 7.O-O Bg4

This is the Stojchev - Jacimovic move order. Between 5.c3/5.Bd3 and 9.Re1 Fishbein doesn't analyze any alternatives for either side, nor in his other two games in this line. 7...Bf5!? 8.Bxf5 Nxf5 9.Re1+ Nge7 I'm not sure how white should "punish" this, certainly not by 10.Qd3 O-O 11.Nbd2 Qd7 12.Nf1 when black is tempo ahead of Spraggett - Rocha (there the wN is already on g3).

8.Nbd2 Qd7 9.Re1

In the notes to Thavandiran - So, he quotes Spraggett - Rivera, Lisbon 2014, but he doesn't seem to be aware of Spraggett's article on the Exchange French. See spraggettonchess.com 2016.11.04 at archive.org.

• 9...f6 10.Nf1 O-O-O 11.b4 +/- (1:0, 57) Spraggett - Stella, Figuera da Foz 2016
• 9...O-O-O 10.b4 +/- (1:0, 59) Spraggett - Rivera, Lisbon 2014
• 9...O-O "small edge" according to Spraggett 10.Nf1 Bf5 11.Ng3 (Fishbein gives instead 11.Ne3 and 11.Be2) Bxd3 12.Qxd3 Bxg3?! 13.hxg3 (1:0, 33) Spraggett - Rocha, Ponto Delgado 2016

I wouldn't be at all surprised if 9...O-O "small edge" turns out to be "no edge". Unfortunately black won't have many winning chances with same side castling.

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 05/22/21 at 21:22:31:


Interesting. A few years ago I looked at this via 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Bd6 6.Nf3 from Black's perspective and concluded that White has the better attacking chances after 10.b4, ie castling queenside is too risky. Then I looked at 9...f6 (iso 9...O-O-O) and concluded that Black's best is castling kingside followed by ...Bf5. Finally I wondered if Black can save a tempo with 6...Nge7 (iso 6...Bg4) followed by 7...Bf5 as pointed out by GM Moskalenko in his latest book on the French; only after 7.Qc2 Black plays Bg4 as in Braga-Moskalenko, Barbera 2001. Black claims to play an improved version of the Thavandiran-So game, because Qc2 is a suboptimal move.
Just my two SRD (worth less than ever in this time of inflation).

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 05/22/21 at 21:22:31:

I wonder if he addresses 9...f6, which came up here a decade ago.
https://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?num=1308353396/25#25

I commented on Fishbein's book in the Opening Repertoire How-To thread.
https://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?num=1614190532/35#35

FreeRepublic wrote on 12/18/20 at 00:08:08:

There is one disadvantage with being a tempo up - White has to reveal his/her intentions first. A simple example: after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Bd3 Black has Nc6. White won't get that position with an extra tempo after 4.Nc3 because Black can deviate, especially with ...Bb4. At the other hand 4.Bb5+ doesn't make sense.
Of course you're right that this is not nearly enough to argue for Black having an edge. Still Black can use this to maximize winning chances.
The only reason that there is no theory on the French Exchange is that nobody has written a book on it with systematical research. There is an abundance of games, even on (near) GM level.

Of course black isn't better, I was making a joke. Spraggett on his website said the Exchange Variation was best(!), so there is one strong player. Some GM-types I associate with the Exchange Variation: Morphy, Maroczy, Shaked, Ashley, Miezes. There are others but I forget at the moment. But aside from Spraggett I don't think any of them claimed it was advantageous for white.

I've looked at it carefully and think white has, as one GM says, "practical chances only". Sielecki's assessments in his 1.e4 book are, in my view, airily over-confident about white's play. In most of those IQP positions, even if white has a slight initiative, I would rather be black.

MNb wrote on 12/09/20 at 17:36:24:

You didn't misunderstand my comment. I'm sure my standards are not as high as yours: I am but a humble patzer trying to put together a repertoire for my young pupil, and for this purpose I have found Fishbein's book useful. But I am having trouble following your criticism about Weeramantry-Curdo. Were you perhaps thinking of Weeramantry-Brooks, Chicago 1994, which in 2011 you thought (no doubt rightly) was equal? But perhaps we should pursue this in the 1.e4 e5 section. I couldn't find a thread on Fishbein's book.