French defense advance variation as white tips

I really hate the French as white and always go for the advance variation if they don’t take as I like the space imbalance. I commonly get hung up with the fight for the weak d pawn, or get attacked on the weak b pawn by blacks queen after moving the dark squared bishop. I think I played well in the listed game (91%), but any tips particularly in the opening as white for this variation ?

2 things are already alarming just in the first few moves.

1) 2.Nf3, garbage! It allows Black additional options that should not be given to him. The whole point behind e4 is to grab the center. Ideally, White wants a pawn on e4 and another on d4. So if 2.d4 is not prevented, White should play 2.d4. That goes for the French, Caro-Kann, Pirc, Modern, Owen's Defense, etc.

2) 5.Bb5 is a terrible move. In the Advance French, the LSB is your advantage. Black's is buried behind the pawns, yours should be used for a kingide attack, NOT Bb5??

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 and now:

A) 5...Bd7 6.Be2 f6 7.O-O fxe5 8.Nxe5 Nxe5 9.dxe5 Qc7 and now 10.f4 or 10.c4. The latter is more dynamic, but sacrifices a pawn.

B) 5...Qb6 6.a3 and now:

B1) 6...Nh6 7.b4 cxd4 and now 8.Bxh6 is all the rage, but also good is 8.cxd4 Nf5 9.Bb2 and now 9...Bd7 10.g4! As Black does not have ...Nh4 or 9...Be7 10.Bd3! As Black loses the Queen to Bb5+ if he tries to take on d4 thrice.

B2) 6...c4 7.Nbd2 Na5 (or else 8.b3 - also, 7...Nge7?? 8.Bxc4!! dxc4 9.Nxc4 followed by 10.Nxd6+ and Black is toast.

I have played the French as Black for over 27 years over the board, and have also played about 50 games or so over the board with White with 3.e5 and another 20 or so with 3.Nc3.

http://charlottechesscenter.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-french-connection-volume-31.html?m=1

There is a critical game I played as White in the French Advance over the board and well illustrates how White should play the opening!

And make sure you also read the article from the link within for Volume 28. Very closely related line, and one where Black wins - observe the differences in White's play. Best way to learn is not only see what is right, but also what is wrong and why it is wrong!

Thanks so much! great advice and exactly what I was looking for. I play Nf3 instinctually because I like to play italian-ish positions and if I don't know the opening, I just go for something similar to what I know. I have resisted learning the french as white for some reason but according to aimchess it is one of my weakest openings time after time. I have decent tactics so I manage to squeeze out some wins from losing positions but I would much rather prefer to not be in them in the first place!

If this helps, maybe you want to read all 39 articles I wrote on the French Defense from 2018 to 2020.

The Website that I wrote for is no longer up, but the articles are still there. You may have to toy around with it to find them, but the URL is similar for all of them.

Here is the first one:

https://charlottechesscenter.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-french-connection-volume-1.html?m=1

Now, to get to the second one, change the number after "volume-" from 1 to 2. That might work, it might not and you might get a page not found.

If you get a page not found, it means it was published in a different month. If you look earlier in the URL, you see "2018/03", which means that article was published in March 2018.

I check the first few of them. Volumes 2 and 3 were also published in March 2018. So you'd just change the 1 to a 2 and the 2 to a 3 to get those. But when you try to change the 3 to a 4, you get a page not found.

In that case, when you get to volume 4, you will have to change the date to 2018/04 because it was published in April 2018.

Sometimes, there may be multiple months between articles, so you could get an error, adjust it by one month, and still get the error. Just proceed to the next month.

The final article is Volume 39, and it was sometime in Mid-2020. So all of the articles will be between March 2018 and sometime in mid-2020. Also, they will be in order. So, for example, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 were all in March 2018. Volume 4 was in April 2018. Volumes 5 through 39 will NOT be in March 2018. Volume 5 could be in April (I haven't checked), but it could also be in May or June or July. Again, there could be a few months where none of them were published, but it will always go forwards, never backwards.

I like to play 2 Nf3 followed by 3 Nc3 tempting Black to play 3...d4. This 2 Nf3 line is covered by Chris Baker and Graham Burgess in their book "A startling Chess Opening Repertoire New Edition" 2019 copyright. At best, it can lead to highly original positions in which the White player can often gain time on the clock in an OTB game. At worst, it can lead to slightly inferior main lines.

The "Two Knights" approach in the French is inferior to that of the Caro-Kann.

Black can basically force a transposition to a "bad Steinitz" as other moves by White are worse.

After 3...Nf6! 4.e5 Nfd7 5.d4 (other moves are worse) c5 6.dxc5 and White has zero advantage. The old "Jackal" with 6...Bg5 is a one trick pony hoping for 6...f6? when instead 6...Qb6 is fine, if not slightly better, for Black.

And plus, that is not the Advance. See the thread title.

A nice link to your articles, quite easy to access also.

I wouldn’t trade your light squared bishop with Bb5 because it is far superior compared to its counterpart and is your strong piece considering your pawns are on dark squares