Winawer without Theory
I've been learning the French Defense, or at least a few lines of it. I overwhelmingly play opponents who go for the Exchange Variation (3. exd5) or the Advance Variation (3. e5), both of which I've learnt and enjoy playing. Recently, however, I played a game in which my opponent played 3. Nc3, inviting a Classical French, which I am absolutely clueless about.
The only response to 3. Nc3 I had even the slightest inkling about was 3... Bb4, the Winawer Variation. I know that the Winawer is a tremendously convoluted tactical nightmare--and nothing beyond the very first move. Even though I myself prefer quiet positional play (though recently I've been experimenting with attacking chess), I thought, what the heck, let's go for it. The game that follows was thought out exclusively over the board, and yielded some interesting results when I analysed it later and went over actual Winawer themes.