French Defense or Sicilian Taimanov or E5?

Hi all,

I am returning to chess after a 20 year break and have just made it onto my local teams second to bottom board in the 'E-team' for the second time. Last time I played in that position, I had to resign after 15 moves having misplayed the opening. I have been practising tactics, playing lots of correspondence chess on chess.com and have been learning a repertoire for white based on the Queens Gambit. So I think that I'm probably reasonably well prepared if my opponent plays d4. 

If my opponent plays e4, I need to generate a plan of attack. As a teen, I would always have replied e5 and back then I was a Ruy Lopez player, so I could cope if my opponent played the Ruy Lopez or the Italian game, and made it up as I went along if they played anything else.

I'm now in a position where I have racked up on chessable a repertoire for black based on e5, another on the Sicilian Taimanov and a third on the French Defense. I need to choose soon so that I can learn in time for my match in 10 days time. I'm kind of edging towards the French Defense because it seems most similar to Queens gambit, but I have been successful in one game with the Sicilian Taimanov, with my opponent completely misplaying the opening because they didn't know it. My OTB grade is around 1225 based on an ECF grade of 70, my opponent is likely to have a grade of 1400 (ECF 90), and quite a few years practise. My advantage is that I'm studying the game hard at the moment, so I may be punching a little above my current grade. I'm doing well in 1 day correspondance chess at the moment, but taking a lot of time over each move, which won't be available otb.

I really want to win this next chess match. What preparation would you recommend?

Thanks!

French defense is sound and if you are leaning towards that, it's probably a good idea to follow your intuition. The French is somewhat of a surprise at that level. 

I vote Sicilian.  It’s just badass.  Deadguy approved.

The thematic ideas of the French would be the quickest to learn in a short amount of time.

I assume if you are writing this you already know you will be playing black

The french is the most similar to the queens gambit in the fact that it is solid and involves relatively closed positions. If that's what you're leaning towards, their isn't really a reason not to go for it.

Sicilian Taimanov is also solid. It's not a particularly popular sicilian line, but it's not bad, and has lots of ideas. It's also ok.

e5 is what I play. I wouldn't recommend it however since there are a ton of lines to learn in ten days.

Overall they are all good. Play what you want to but start learning it now.

When I was starting out, a National Master recommended the French, with the idea that learning it could lead to playing the Sicilian Taimanov as the first Sicilian defense. It's a bit of an unusual route, but it does make sense. The French rewards counter-attacking on the c-file, and the Sicilian Taimanov is often considered the most positional of the Sicilian lines (see Taimanov's own comments on the variation). 

I would generally recommend the French to players of your strength before trying anything as complex as the Sicilian.

I returned to chess last year after 16 years away and, even though I liked varying my defenses, I decided to focus on a small number of them and think about expanding later. I would recommend trying the French exclusively for a while and then Taimanov and 1...e5, Do not assume you have problems if you're having trouble unless you first study the typical positions and attacks you can achieve out of each opening.

As Black I've been playing 1...c6 most of the time against 1 e4, 1 d4, 1 c4, and 1 Nf3.  That leads to Caro-Kann and Slav Defenses or similar positions.

But there are times to use other Openings when you know your opponent is uncomfortable with them.

Recently, I knew I was going to play a particular Belgian player in a match for Team USA Southeast and I saw, using the chess.com Opening Explorer, that he had lost 4 of 5 games as White, playing the Ruy Lopez vs the Morphy Defense.  I had not played 1...e5 to 1 e4 for decades, but decided to do it against that opponent. He has now lost 5 of 6 games as White in the Ruy Lopez, Morphy Defense. Note that, as I've commented in many of my posts, my basic strategy was to follow Fred Wilson's advice in his book Simple Attacking Plans: "Aim all your pieces at your opponent's king and relentlessly attack:"

Id say the French Defence is a good opening

With the Sicilian, you will also have to understand some aspects of the Sicilian Kan and other Paulsen related defenses due to transpositions. You'll also have to learn and understand the various while Sicilian systems when white chooses not to play the open Sicilian.

Myself, play both the Taimanov and the French. There is a lot of similarity in pawn structures and can even use the same variations in "minor" lines, i.e against KIA and alapin (2c3)

This is exactly what you should not be doing. At 1200+ level, "cramming lines" will do nothing for your chess. It will not help you become a better chess player and probably won't even help you win individual games. You need to know some basic lines and, more importantly, understand the principles of the opening: what is the significance of the pawn structure, what are typical offensive and defensive plans for you and your opponent, what tactical patterns come up, etc. But you should not be memorizing lines blindly. Knowing a bunch of moves without understand the meaning behind them is a great way to avoid improvement. On the other hand, if you understand the principles, you'll be able to find the right moves at the board and outplay your opponent. More importantly, you will learn and improve.

Chuddog is spot on.  Memorization is vastly over-rated.  There are many 1800+ players who (claim at least) to have very little memorized, but they are good players.  There are also many people with mountains of theory memorized, can recite names and variations and eco codes, who are still stuck sub-1400.

A far better use of your time will be with some practice games.  Play ten blitz games against the computer, five as white, five as black, all with the French.  You will lose, obviously, but you’ll get a sense of what to do as Black and what to look out for as White.  You’ll see typical patterns, and you’ll learn them far better because you are actively engaged in the process.  Afterwards you can look up lines, “The computer played an early c4 as White, how should I have responded?”  You’ll be far better prepared for the middlegame, which is where the game will be decided anyway.

Also, if you can make good moves against the computer, regular people should seem like a piece of cake in comparison.

There are some excellent books on the French Defense that discuss the basic ideas. Take a look at books by Watson for a good introduction. Make sure you play the complete games through several times to get a sense of where the pieces belong.  

As Chuddog pointed out, it's far more important to learn the basic ideas. Worry about concrete lines later.

Thank you Murriean and Two Move for confirming my approach: French first then Taimanov when I'm used to the French. Thanks SmithyQ and SmyslovFan for advice to stop cramming so much. I am concentrating on playing some correspondence chess practice games with the French currently and have laid off the cramming.

MickinD, now that I'm looking at this thread with a computer rather than with a phone, I can see your illustrative game. It's so cool that you can look up which openings your opponent doesn't like on Chess.com. Perhaps I should have picked a nickname rather than my actual name for chess.com, for future years. Hmm.