Since I was coaching my nephew the French Defence to broaden his repertoire for his next SA championship bid, I thought I could start a discussion thread on that. Many coaches feel that players should know the French because if you played e5 and your opponent played e6, do you know how to continue? In any event all players should have a few different openings under their belt, and try to steer your opponent to your familiar line. Always study a masters level line, nothing less, or your opponent could take your weaknesses apart.

The French is one of the most solid defences because the simple e6 move in response to e5 takes away a diagonal to attack the weak f7 square. Black, however, should be very careful about the order in the development or could get into trouble. Study the order and you can set up for a safe draw or develop attacking chances for a win. Any database can give you a good line to follow, for example the French Advance Paulsen Attack which I like: 

The game is very equal at this point. There are also other variations, for example the Fort Knox. (Fort Knox is where the US keeps its gold so it's hard to break in.)  I found this video which gives a very nice explanation for the moves:

http://blog.chess.com/ChessNetwork/french-defense-fort-knox-variation---karpov-vs-stojanovic

A very useful topic! It's extremely hard to play with white against the French defence if you don't know the theory very well.

I'm not really a big fan of learning long theoretical variations, so I usually play the exchange variation. Looking at the face of your opponent when you take the d5 pawn is quite funny! Most French Defence players don't like these kind of quiet variations, that somehow look like Petrov or Caro-Kann defences. Although at a master level there is no real hope of victory, I often find some sharp variations that are totally different of situations French defence players are used to.

Hi Jay

Thanks for sharing this interesting opening. I usually play the Sicilian as black and think I should explore the French to add it to my openings list.

It seems to fit the description of confrontational and offbeat, which is what I like as Black.

Cheers.