Can French Defence considered good ? Based on Ding Liren success over Gukesh in WTC.

Based on Ding Liren's recent success against Gukesh Dommaraju by using the French Defense in the World Chess Championship.Can it be considered a good choice?

Answer - YES.

The French Defense is a strong and flexible response to 1. e4, as long as you understand the underlying principles behind it. After 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5, black intends to fix, undermine, and ultimately destroy the d4 pawn. Once that pawn falls, white will have too many weaknesses to hold the position together.

Game 1 of the championship match illustrates this clearly. The game was effectively over at move 12 (12. ..cxd4), because Gukesh could not recapture with the c-pawn for tactical reasons. This left him two central weaknesses, the now-unsupported e5 pawn, and the c3 pawn, which was backwards and blockaded on an open file. From there, Ding gradually built up the pressure until the c3 pawn fell, and Gukesh's position collapsed from there.

The French Defense is black sacrificing space in order to obtain the initiative, so it's about counterplay more than equality. Gukesh understood this after losing Game 1. Indeed, this is why we saw the Exchange French (3. exd5 exd5) in Game 5, which gives black immediate equality. It avoids giving black the initiative as seen in the Steinitz, Tarrasch, Advance, Winawer, and Rubinstein Variations (all of which put white on the defensive if played correctly). In Game 13, where the Steinitz Variation was played again, Gukesh made certain to preserve d4 until the center was liquidated completely (and to be fair, even then 27. d5!? was inaccurate).

The French Defense is played poorly at the amateur level because it's often treated similarly to the Caro-Kann (1. e4 c6), which is a more passive defense. The French Defense is an immediate counterattack in the center, and black must keep up the pressure in the center in order to play it effectively.

OMG really?

Ding Liren couldn't beat Gukesh easily. In fact, he lost to Gukesh, 3 games to 2 with 9 draws.

are you stupid

Thank you all for the answers

- the winawer is very complex / dynamic, and black will know the lines better than white (unless you play a sideline as white like 4. Ne2, which is what I recommend... but most opponents won't do this). So great for black

- the advanced ... black is considered fine, almost equal. I'd say black has good drawing chances, but with the LSB blocked I don't think black is playing for a win the way a few people suggest. If white screws up you might have chances, but usually it's just kind of an easy equalish game for black but also boring

- the exchange is very boring and neither black nor white have alot of winning chances, again good for black if you don't mind boring

- the tarrasch - white gets some good initiative but the position is also a bit unstable for white, there's some interesting theory that usually black will be more familiar with, it's also kind of hard to diverge from theory in a meaningful way, so overall I'm fine with blacks position because he gets to play the theory often.

- rubinstein - black is not playing for a win here, that's just nonsense. This is generally thought of as a 2 result opening.

Overall it's hard for white to do anything surprising or new against the french.... but I also think black often ends up with a boring position that, while not challenging, doesn't gives black winning chances as reliably as the sicilian does. French players love to argue their defense is an aggressive opening, but this is wanting when a) you moved your pawn 1 square, you don't occupy the center and you can't attack through it, b) your LSB is often blocked in, c) your defense leads to two very boring lines, the exchange and the advanced