Massive space advantage against the French Defense

#FrenchDefense 

I don’t know much about playing against the French Defense, other than there is sometimes an opportunity to take up space! This happened in this game that I played today against a rather stronger player. By the end of the opening and the middle game, I had managed to take control of the majority of the board with my pawns, and somehow got all of my opponent’s pieces somewhat stuck in their queenside corner! Please enjoy!

Although I knew that I was likely to be substantially ahead in the middle game, it was nonetheless a battle! My opponent played really well and I have to admit that I struggled somewhat to convert the position to a win. I simply couldn’t see a forcing checkmate line and as my opponent managed to unpack their pieces from the corner, I opted instead to try to force piece trades to enter an endgame up a piece. This was ultimate successful but not easy, and I managed to win with only 37 seconds left on my clock compared to my opponent’s 13 minutes. Exciting!

I hope you enjoyed this video, and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/39828628755