Attacks against French Defense

Hi everybody. I wanna know a little bit more about attacks against French Defense. I´ve tried the Reti Gambit and the King´s Indian Attack. But black easily equilize in 10 moves or less. Does anybody know some attack against this? I´m thinking on the exchange variation, in view of a kind of Panov Attack, but black light squared bishop develops easily. Any ideas?

I think one of the more dangerous attacks against the French is the Alekhine-Chatard Attack, black most know what he is doing.  There is also the wing gambit which can be tricky.  I like the exchange variation for both colours black gets easy play and white gets to keep the position open.

And what about the winawer? Winawer with 4... b6 is the solidest thing I´ve ever seen.

As a long-time French player, I dread the moves 3. Nc3 and 3. Nd2 more than any of the others (Exchange, Advance). The Kings Indian Attack is lame. It has a big fan club though that will try to convince you that it practically wins by force, but it's pretty rare above Expert level.

The problem is, that I´ve been playing the French for 5 years, and I know a lot about the french and its possibles variations... and I can´t think on any good attack, just the KIA.

With proper play the KIA is pretty good against the french. Its when people just do that automatic attack scheme ALL the time against it that it loses its value....besides, do you think Fischer and Morozevich were just hittin the pipe to long when they play it?

Oh, and look up the Korchnoi gambit. I used to play it (before switching to KIA) and it has ALOT of logic to it. Top players don't even take the pawn more often then not nowadays.

p.s I switched because you cant play this gambit in a lot of lines

my vote is for the exchange variation: monte carlo variation.

I think it´s good idea to say than I´m a 1900, and I have to play against 2050-2200. So my idea is to carry them on tactical complications. With the king´s indian attack, complications arise at move 15 or more if black doesn´t play ... e5 at some point. On the other hand, main lines are so well prepared by black. That´s the clue.

Yes, I was thinking on this variation too

i second it

I used to play the french and still do sometimes. Monte carlo is garbage...give me the variation and I'll show you how black equalize fast

It may look like the panov but it's nowhere near as strong

Then, No_Class, you recomend the KIA , isn´t it? or you prefer the main lines?

I reccomend this:

p.s don't listen to dafy (hes an idiot). I'm not even going to throw out variations here I'll just say that the winawer and the mccutheon are the two most common variations for the french at the high levels...Who do you believe: GMS or Dafy? 

I find these two statements hilariously ironic

Guys please... I´m sure that all of you think you are right, but i wanna talk about chess. No_Class, i´ll look at that line.

French Defense - Advance Variation, Nimzowitsch Gambit

The Advance Variation - Nimzowitsch Gambit is a dangerous variation. That is, it is dangerous for the player handling the Black pieces!

Some basic themes are as follows:

1) White overprotects the 'e5' pawn a la Nimzowitsch

2) White allows her 'd4' pawn to fall

3) White's development scheme prepares for a massive king-side assault

4) White may gambit her 'c' pawn especially if Black castles queen-side

5) White's overprotected pawn on 'e5' may eventually become dangerously mobile after sacrificial moves such as Ncxd5

6) White's 'h' pawn may march forward ('h4', 'h5', 'h6') in order to apply decisive pressure against Black's queen-side.

The Open Encyclopedia of Chess Openings provides a much more comprehensive treatment of the French Defense - Advance Variation, Nimzowitsch Gambit.

In 20+ years of playing the French, I have never had this played against me. It really doesn't look very convincing.

by phillidor5949-> Care to show us an annotated game or two that you won with this opening? 

(I really enjoy the annotations, btw.)