after e5 you can play na6 and wait for white to develop his kingside knight which you then pin with the bishop. if white doesnt play Nf3 then you could consider playing bf5 and just playing a french structure, with the lsb free. this should give you a good game. a lot of the time you will put your dsb on e7, followed by castling and f6. blacks other knight should always go to c6.queen may often go to b6, a5, or c7 black usually gets a very good game.
French Defense without d2-d4
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Elias, do you mean Nh6? Na6 doesn't seem like it accomplishes much...
And this is more or less what I thought I should be doing. Developing the LSB outside the pawns seemed interesting--I would have to think it's pretty good--but otherwise you just play for d4 then.
Yet, despite all that, I seem to find myself subject to a KS attack and I can't get back and help with my pieces on the queenside. Perhaps there is something wrong with my middlegame.
Here's a blitz game where it happened. I'm sure I missed some tactics (and probably lost because of them), but when I play these games I always have the feeling that I don't know what I'm doing.
i think you should just play normally. Coming from a French player.
In the structure after 6.d3
6...d4 really slows your play down because now your pawn break is on c4 and that's going to take a long time to make good (if ever). If you want to claim you're going to use the space, that's also going to take time because you can't use space without development.
In that structure just leave the pawn tension. You cover more central squares with pawns abreast, and you can actually use d4 and the g1-a7 diagonal for your pieces. If white takes on d5 you probably see that's good for you. If he advances e5 then his plan is a kingside attack... and that's slow for the same reasons as above. You'll continue development and expand on the queenside... d4 isn't bad to play later... but on move 6 it leaves you pretty passive.
Oh,my...
I do not know any French stucture where the second player blunders a pawn (5...Qc7? 6.exd5) and the opponent replies by blundering a piece (6.d3? d4?! 7.Ne2?? Qa5+).
I'd say forget about openings, and learn elementary tactics instead.
Well, I have slow games too where I'm not dropping pieces/pawns for no reason. But in blitz I miss tactics more often in positions where I feel uncomfortable, usually because I'm too busy trying to figure out what to do rather than being concrete.
not sure about the quality of the game, but it was the first one i could find after a little searching. here is the kind of setup i am referring to http://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=983730194
Usually people play this to get the so-called "big clamp" setup where White has pawns on c3, d3, e4 and f4. This version is more favorable to Black than the one in the Sicilian because they have played ...d5 in one turn.
I think Black's basic idea is to focus on the queenside and try to take advantage of the possible weaknesses there. But it can get complicated and both sides can end up playing on either side.
Most importantly I think you have to forget about the opening because it's not a "French" anymore and a lot of different ideas are possible here.
Thank you all--your advice worked out well. Here is a blitz game I just played where I won thanks to having more confidence in the position:
I'm looking foward to trying this out in an OTB/slow game.
1.e4 e6 2.f4 d5 3.e5 is a known way to play against the French Defense; it's called the Labourdonnais Variation. Glek played it a bunch, Nakamura has also tried it. White is trying to transpose back into an Advance structure, ideally, once his pieces are better placed - the main move order of the Advance Variation allows Black to launch an early seige on d4 that White can't defend without making some concession.
Here is an old article from the Kenilworthian that highlights some of the main ideas. http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/games/java/2009/french-f4.htm
Here's one of my games.
Occasionally I get these positions where black has the usual French Defense setup, while white has not yet played d2-d4. Most common is for me to get them out of the Tal Gambit (1. e4 c5 2. f4 d5), where white declines the gambit with something like 3.e5
I know this should be good for black--if the same position with white having a pawn on d4 is strong, then this must be at least as good. Yet I seem to lose a lot more games in this position than when I play a normal French defense, which makes me wonder if there is a different set of plans here that I need to be pursuing, instead of the "build up on d4" plan (Nc6, Qb6, etc.)