I came across IM Andras Toth praising the Sokolov book and talking about some of the Winawer content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gs-zWMr-kg

Regarding the positional Winawer stuff, I wonder if Ivan Sokolov has anything to say about it in his new book. (It's "not a theory book"; it's about some 1. e4 structures, and has a Winawer chapter.)

I see that the position before 18. Nf6 in Golyak-Gaiduk appeared in Pachman's Modern Chess Tactics (1973), and was used (giving Pachman as the source) in the Bratko-Kopec Test (1982).

Alexey Suetin in his 1965 book Modern Chess Opening Theory thought that 8...c4 "leads to a complicated game with approximately equal chances for both sides."

kylemeister - Thanks for pointing out the So-Abdusattorov game in Reply #27. I was curious about the position after 9...c4 and found that its first occurrence in the Mega Database was in the famous Smyslov-Botvinnik game from the 1944 Soviet Championship. The Chessbase version of the game was annotated by Rainer Knaak, who marked 9...c4 with a ?. He noted that Black usually waits for White to commit to Bf1-e2 before advancing the c-pawn. He felt that closing the position with 9...c4? was weak since White can develop the bishop to g2 or h3 (obviously after g2-g3). This is similar to the Nunn/NCO line that you mentioned.

It turns out that Smyslov-Botvinnik is the first game in Giddins' The French Winawer Move by Move. Giddins is more charitable, marking 9...c4 with !?. He says that it's more common to retain the central tension with 9...Bd7 and adds that 9...c4 would allow 10.g3 with the idea of Bh3, O-O,  Nh4, and f4-f5, which is also the same general idea of the flank development of the bishop given by Knaak and Nunn.

Another old book bit is Moles' analysis in his The French Defence - Main Line Winawer. He follows Boleslavsky-Barcza for several moves: 10.g3 Bd7 11.Bg2 0-0-0 12.0-0 f5 13.exf6 gxf6 14.Re1 Ng6 15.Bh6 Rhg8 16.Qd2 Rde8. Now Moles quotes an even older book, Schwarz, which has an evaluation of =/+. In contrast, Stockfish gives White a slight edge. Moles called 10.Bg2 "illogical" and preferred 10.Bh3. He quotes the game Raetsch-Liebert, Lasker Memorial Berlin 1962, where White achieved a winning edge but then "went off the rails" and lost. In introducing his section on 9...c4, Moles says the move "is considered inaccurate since Black has nothing to fear from 9...Bd7 10.c4 and theoretically should wait for White to commit his king bishop to e2 or d3 before closing the queenside." He concludes the section with  "White seems to have chances for the initiative with 10.g3; hence Black should avoid 9...c4, which has no special counter-virtues to justify the inconvenience of having to meet 10.g3".

In line with his comment of waiting for White to play Bf1 e2 or Bf1-d3, Moles considers 9...Bd7 10.Be2 c4 to be fine. It's his main line, as I noted back in Reply #16.

So the consensus from 1975 (Moles) to 2013 (Giddins) seems to be that 9...c4 is premature, and it's better to wait for White to develop his king bishop. More recently, however, 9...c4 has been played with some regularity.  ChessBase marks 9...c4 as a "hot" move.  Thus, it could be part of the apparent trend of Black closing the position by advancing his c-pawn and thereby aiming to play more strategically. It's interesting that Abdusattorov played the move. He's the strongest player to adopt it in recent years, although it was "just" in a blitz game.

Dink Heckler wrote on 10/06/23 at 11:14:59:

I agree.  It was rather unsettling to open that new edition of ECO and find that switch.

Orthogonal to the main discussion, but I never realised that ECO codes changed - seems disconcerting.

Reminds me of the Simpson's quote:
"I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was!"

FreeRepublic wrote on 09/30/23 at 15:15:46:

Fischer definitely seemed to favor the positional lines. A search of the Mega Database fails to find any examples of him playing 7.Qg4 in a mainline Winawer. The closest he came was 7.Qg4 in the Armenian Variation in his famous game vs. Tal at the 1960 Leipzig Olympiad. Another game with Fischer playing a Qg4 maneuver that readily comes to mind is Fischer-Hook (in the eponymous Portisch-Hook variation) at the 1970 Siegen Olympiad . Fischer's most frequent adoption of Qg4 was in the several games where he employed 4.a3 vs. the Winawer, most notably in Fischer-Kovacevic, Rovinj/Zagreb 1970. However, as noted, not of these is the mainline Winawer with 7.Qg4.

Some comments by Edmar Mednis in his How to Beat Bobby Fischer may shed some light on Fischer's avoidance of 7.Qg4. In his annotations to Fischer-Geller, Monte Carlo 1967, Mednis describes the situation after Black's 18...Bb7 as "a crazy, wild, complicated, unbalanced position...Yet there is no strategically clear way to proceed with the attack. What is required is an intuitive juggling of a number of tactical opportunities. This means the position is not one where Fischer is at his best: yes, he's good in it but not great. It is truly a "Tal type" position..." While the Fischer-Geller game was a Sicilian, the description "crazy, wild, complicated, unbalanced" could easily fit the Winawer Poison Pawn. 

At another point, when commenting on the Tarrasch Variation vs. the French, Mednis expressed the opinion that it "allows White to retain a small, but riskless initiative for many moves. This is exactly the situation that Bobby strives for with White, thus the Tarrasch should suit him to a T". 

Combining the two Mednis comments leads to the thought that Fischer avoided the 7.Qg4 variation due to its murkiness and because he apparently thought he would have better control of things with less risk in the positional lines.  Also, Fischer famously called the Winawer "anti-positional", so what better way to combat it than the positional variations. 

One last Mednis observation: he noted that Fischer ventured the Tarrasch only once (in Fischer-R. Byrne, US Championship 1965) despite its stylistic fit. According to Mednis, Fischer persisted in playing against the Winawer because it was "the only opening where the mature Fischer still shows signs of 'youthful stubbornness'".

FreeRepublic wrote on 09/30/23 at 15:15:46:

Apparently the positional lines were the main lines in Fischer's heyday since they were given at the very end of the ECO section on the Winawer. That's based on my impression that ECO organizes variations so that early deviations and sidelines come first, with the absolute main line coming at the end. The positional lines were assigned C19, the last of the ECO codes for the French, when the code system first appeared.  I was surprised to see ECO Volume C (5th edition 2006) had switched to 7.Qg4 as C19, and had reassigned C18 to the positional lines.  However, not everyone has followed suit. For example, ChessBase still has the positional lines classified as C19. Apparently the ECO folks made the switch in recognition of 7.Qg4 becoming the main line. I wonder if other changes are on the way. For example, the last code for the Queen's Gambit, D69, corresponds to the ancient Orthodox Defense, complete with Capablanca's freeing maneuver, which just isn't played much any more, at least at the top levels. And C99 is the Chigorin Variation in the Closed Ruy. Perhaps this should be superseded by the Berlin 

Nernstian59 wrote on 09/20/23 at 22:35:44:


I seem to recall that Fischer was suspicious of 7Qg4 and preferred positional lines. Theory does not stand still and 7Qg4 became the main line. Ponomoriov has a White repertoire against the French Defense at modern-chess. He continues with 7h4. More recently GM Kalyan Arjun released his repertoire against the French (modern-chess). From the description, his choice is 7a4 Qa5! 8. Bd2 Nbc6 9. Nf3. I only consider and play the French from time to time. So for me, it seems that a line out of vogue for decades has come back into fashion.