FreeRepublic wrote on 12/05/24 at 13:37:01:


Or run a tournament with a few mixed strength engines - you just see those hugely complex slowish games play out, white wins a few more but it's very clearly fine up to basically any level.

FWIW I think that a5,a4,a3 is just totally fine vs Ngf3 - it's even turned up on the main chess pub page hasn't it?

It's also seemingly quite OK vs the early f4 lines, if (of course!) very complex.

I'd love it to also work vs 5 Bd3, Nge2 etc, that is getting quite risky/provocative. Not that I can quite work/remember why now. 

Of course Nepo played 3 .. a5 for a while so.....

It's a very nice line vs the KIA of course, you can quite easily end up getting the whole thing +1 tempo.

Nernstian59 wrote on 11/26/24 at 22:49:30:

You might want to check the game Dragnev, Valentin - Vasquez Schroeder, R.  annotated by John Watson in the June 2024 issue of ChessPublishing.

A thing that stuck in my memory is a remark by Bent Larsen from the 1970s. It was about the position after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g3 Nc6 7.Bg2 Nxd4 8.Qxd4 Be7 9.O-O O-O 10.e5 dxe5 11.Qxe5 Qb6 12. Na4 Qa6 13. b3 Bd7 14. Nc5, which had been given as equal by Geller in ECO. Larsen wrote, "In fact, I prefer Black here; after 14...Bxc5 15. Qxc5 Rac8 16. Qb4 Bc6 White's Queenside majority must not be overestimated (as it is in most American chess literature!), and the White King is unhappy."

Michael Ayton - Thanks for pointing out that earlier discussion and the Bunzmann line in particular. I'm not familiar with that particular continuation, but it does seems to merit further examination. Your mention of that Leningrad style line reminded me of Keene and Taulbut's French Defence: Tarrasch Variation (1980), which was the first book devoted to the Tarrasch, at least to my knowledge. It had separate chapters on the Leningrad approach vs. 5.Bd3 and 5.f4. I got the impression from this and contemporaneous books that the Leningrad was a popular way to meet the Tarrasch during that time. IIRC Black's prospects didn't look great in the Keene/Taulbut analysis, and I don't see that many French repertoires recommending this route. This makes me wonder if the Leningrad idea has been found wanting, or if the main line in the 3...Nf6 Tarrasch is considered more promising.

To add a bit to our comments on the Giri-style approach to the Tarrasch: while looking through Moskalenko's books for the game with the Bunzmann line, I saw a number of comments on Giri's variation. Moskalenko calls it "slightly passive but very solid". While the two of us also noted how solid the line was, I think the passivity might be a factor contributing to my uneasiness with it. Black is well placed to meet White's plans, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the position for the second player to sink his teeth into, so there's a danger of sitting and awaiting developments.

Moskalenko also describes Giri's approach as "useful for players looking for a quick draw". In fact, in The Fully-Fledged French, Moskalenko refers to Giri's line as "Petrosian's drawing weapon". I would think that such a variation would suck all of the life out out the game if "Iron Tigran" used it for such a purpose.

FreeRepublic wrote on 11/16/24 at 14:56:53:

FreeRepublic - I believe I'm seeing the same trends. Other than Bryan Tillis' Chessable course, Mastering the French, I'm not aware of any recent works that recommend 3...Nf6 vs. the Tarrasch. Even something regarded as rather marginal, the Guimard (3...Nc6), is covered in both The French Defense Revisited and Kryakvin's The Modern French Defence from Chess Stars. However, 3...c5 with a subsequent ...Qxd5 seems to be the favored line for meeting the Tarrasch. 

To cite a specific example, I studied Giri's Lifetime Repertoire course on the French during the lockdown, and the variations he presented with 3...c5 seemed to equalize almost effortlessly. His anti-Tarrasch repertoire even avoided the lines where White can muddy the waters by sacrificing a knight on g7. Although Black can hold (see, e.g., Lakdawala's Opening Repertoire - The French Defence or Ntirlis' Playing the French), the task requires memorization of computer lines. Giri's lines avoid this work, and the ease with which it and other 3...c5 repertoires achieve equality seems to be a major reason for their proliferation.

Although Giri's variations yield positions free of defects with good activity for Black's pieces (even the "French bishop" usually gets gets nice prospects on the long diagonal after it's posted on b7), I feel a a bit of visceral unease about them. While Black has no weaknesses, neither does White, and the first player has a queenside pawn majority. It would seem that White has the obvious plan to exploit this feature while Black doesn't have any obvious targets to attack in White's sound structure. Perhaps it's the residual memory of the Irving Chernev books I read in my early chess education where someone like Capablanca converted that majority, seemingly with ridiculous ease. To address your question in the quoted text, I think the choice of 3...c5 by many authors is not so much a matter of it being the "best" line. It's a practical decision based on how this move can form the basis of a repertoire that's implemented with relative simplicity.

I think the situation with the Winawer is slightly better, though the Classical 3...Nf6 still seems to be more common. Not to get too persnickety, but only one of Krishnater's works, The Practical French Defense, recommends the Classical. His other modern-chess product, Modern French Defense, suggests the Winawer with 6...Nc6. I also just noticed that Plichta's French Lifetime Repertoire course on Chessable has recently added coverage of this same variation. Originally, only the Classical was offered vs. 3.Nc3. Plichta said in the forum page for his course that he's wanted to add the Winawer and thought the 6...Nc6 variation would be a good choice since it hasn't been over-analyzed (yet!). 

This 6...Nc6 version of the Winawer is getting a fair amount of attention. John Watson has covered it in multiple updates over the last year. I haven't studied it extensively yet, but it seems to allow Black to meet 7.Qg4 by steering the game into positions that rather more resemble the strategic play of Positional Winawer lines compared to having to venture into the ultra-sharp jungle of the Poison Pawn. 

I'm reminded of the game between Mariya Muzychuk and Alina Kashlinskaya from the 2022 Chennai Olympiad. When I skimmed through the game in a magazine (likely New in Chess), I noticed that the two players were following one of the deep Poison Pawn lines with 12...d4 presented by Giri in his French LTR course. On the 27th move, Black made a fatal error, answering 27.Qd6+ by moving her king on f8 to g8 instead of to the correct g7. In her notes to the game in ChessBase Magazine 210, Ms. Muzychuk comments, "27...Kg7 was a necessity, but the reason is not obvious. So, it's either you remember this, or it's very difficult to figure out which way is correct over the board". This sort of demanding memorization work may explain why utilization of the Poison Pawn poses practical difficulties OTB, leading Black players to seek alternatives that offer a more strategic (some would say more sane) game such as 6...Nc6 or the Portisch-Hook line 6...Qa5.

@Nernstian59

Another 1992 appearance was in The Complete French by Lev Psakhis, where it was labeled as "!?". After several parenthetical lines/citations, it ended with Black having "a good game" in Sveshnikov-Moskalenko.

I'm now a bit curious as to whether there was any mention of it in the second edition of ECO from the early '80s, but alas I no longer have that one. The third edition in 1997 had a column (and a number of notes) on it, with an assessment of unclear (citing Campora-Dohojan 1989, varying in the last move with 16. Bg5).

(Side note: one of the old books I checked which don't mention it is French Defense by Chess Digest, a 77-page paperback from 1973 with a cover price of $3.45. Seems surprisingly high -- inflation-adjusted it's about $24. I recall having a book on opening traps by Horowitz which was from 1970 and had a cover price of $1.45.)

FreeRepublic wrote on 11/19/24 at 13:24:06:


Well I do - I read fast! - but really, what is the point of it? 

It's massively far past what you can remember in the medium, let alone long, term and 95% of it you can regenerate in 10 minutes work with SF & friends anyway.

But people seem to want/demand these really thick books and so on, so.....

Really all of the NNE SF onwards are so good strategically you can just a pick a line that has a halfway workable evaluation, check what it's basic ideas are and play it. You'll have a playable position!

Nernstian59 
“I should note that the PGNs for Modern French Defense are inferior to those provided with other modern-chess products. …”

Indeed, not all PGN files are created equal. I noticed that a NIC magazine download only included games. Their extensive analysis and comments were not included.

“Krishnater doesn't say anything explicitly about the lost tempo, but he does point out that the position is not particularly concrete, so knowledge of plans is the important thing.“

I think that at some point one isn't learning about the opening, as much as about the corresponding middle game. Some players are very much at home in their favorite opening. They get results that are better than what one would expect. I think someone wrote that Kozul won some games in the Kozul suicide variation (Richter-Rauzer Sicilian) but it wasn't because of the opening. Simon Williams gets good results in the Classical Dutch, but that doesn't mean I can memorize a variation and do as well (even against lower rated players).

Kylemeister
The Alekhine-Chatard is covered in four games in ChessPublishing so far in 2024 (Position Search). There is a lot there and I have not gone through it. Accepting the gambit seems most critical. I previously listened to the free “Short & Sweet: Mihajlov's 1. e4” at Chessable. He gave favorable analysis for White.

An Ordinary Chessplayer
Thanks for taking a look at those games. Shuvalov was rated lower than all his opponents. 500 points in one case! He is probably an up and comer.

Perhaps Shuvalov benefitted some from the element of surprise. I don't think that is disqualifying for the variation. I think my opponents would be surprised too!

MartinC
“Sanity I would think”

Perhaps the trend is away from the ultra-sharp lines towards lines that are more solid.

“but books and all these days seem to have the attached expectation of near exhaustive theory and..... “

Covering lines in exhaustive depth and/or in-breadth may be futile. Who has the time to read it? Yet I keep buying.