French Players: Learn to embrace the Exchange Variation!

If you check my post history, you'll notice a lot of complaining about white players forcing the exchange variation.

Well, rather than give up on my favorite black defense to e4, I buckled down, started studying endgames, practiced positional ideas, and learned to love the grip. 

What other variation of the french can give you equality by move 3?

I say this! French players, Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to love the Exchange variation.

I love French defense -though the exchange variation can be really boring. Actually the book Rock Solid Opening Repertoire for Black builds around the French system. There are several lines how to spice it up with black the exchange variation.

Agree. Morphy got a lot of wins with the Exchange Variation, but only because he was Morphy.

If you go to the game explorer on chess.com and enter the moves 

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d6 3.exd

The option ....exd gives white a 21.5% chance to win, 52% chance to draw, and black a 26.5% chance to win.

The chesstempo data base gives 19.4 chance to win for white 57.4% draw, and 23.2% chance to win for black. 

I know, it's win-win because it is just about as close to equality as you can get without stalemate

I'd say white has less of an advantage after the french exchange simply because pawn structure had been defined without any problems being posed and an equal hard point has been established in the center by both sides. White has less of a first move advantage than if he had done nothing at all.

Stop discussing about the french exchange already, it doesn't pose any real interest anyway

I'm probably going to regret this but I'll bite and write out the obvious. French exchange is annoying because of how boring it is, so maybe that makes it a good psychological weapon, but the idea that opening the position gives some kind of advantage. ? You have to look at the Black position too. Before: 

White has achieved the ideal center, pawns on e4 and d4. In the Spanish or something it takes White a long time to build up to this. Here Black has been much more coorperative. White has more space and can develop all minor pieces to good squares easily.

Black has a pawn on e6 blocking in the Bishop and can't develop as well. The problem of this Bishop is the problem with the French Defense. I've seen games between strong GMs where Black was unable to use this piece for the entire game. 

Black has, however just challenged the center. White has the option of supporting it with a piece, pushing on, or exchanging. The textbook answer to this dilemma, as everyone knows, is to support and keep the tension as long as possible, so unless there's an actual problem with supporting the center, that should be preferred. In fact the mainlines involve supporting the center with a piece.

After:

Black's center is just as good as it was on the last move, just as good as White's center... in fact Black now has the same structure as White, more space than s/he did one move ago, and can now develop his/her pieces easily to good squares. 

Yes, White still has "the move," but the symmetrical structure is now fixed. What great thing will White do with this extra tempo? In a sharp position one tempo can mean the game. Sometimes the player to move wins. Sometimes the player to move loses. Openings can be very sharp, at least up until the tension is released. In the first diagram, for example, tempo is important. The second diagram is no longer that kind of position. Both d-pawns are solid and no one has an e-pawn anymore. It's an even position regardless of who has the move. I just looked at at the "let's check" function on chesslive.de and it says White has anywhere from .00 (I kid you not) to .15 depending on the engine, as opposed to the previous position which was closer to .24... now you can't trust engines in the opening, especially when they disagree, but you get the point. (The statistics on that site say the same, though not as bleak for White as the ones quoted here already... and yes I know you can't trust those either on their own as was said already.)

I feel the exchange has made White's position worse. If you want to argue this I probably won't bother to argue back. It's not even very important. 

The most important feature is the exchange has very obviously made Black's position better. This is why the exchange can't be good and other moves, supporting the center, or even pushinng on, are preferred (and score better.) OP is right. End of rant.

Oooh -- you were a bit greedy in trying to say white's advantage actually increases with the exchange variation -- it may have been less risky for you to settle for saying white's advantage does not decrease .

Well, I don't know about you, but given there being much less dynamism in the center (now the only possible pawn break is one with the c pawn, which commits to an isolated pawn), that isn't exactly how you want to go about using your white advantage. In a wide open position a tempo could be everything, but here, white playing Bd3 a move sooner than black... I'm not too concerned. Ideally, with white pawns on e4 and d4, black pawns on e6 and d5, you want black to give in with ...dxe4, rather than get rid of the tension, but ok, white often finds that playing e5 means he no longer has to defend e4, and he settles for a space advantage.

You say "opening the position" but that's rather vague. After exd5 exd5, the e file is open, but the pawns on d4 and d5 lock up the center otherwise. One e file does not exactly equal many new possibilities, especially considering that any penetration points like e7 or e6 are easily covered by the minor pieces. On the other hand, black playing ...dxe4 at some point is much more of an "opening of the position." In that case white indeed gains many more possibilities with his pieces and equalizing for black is not entirely easy.

Ha Ha. To the point!

I guess you didn't read my post. E pawns exchanged is good for Black, not White.

Or it could be that an IM has more chess knowledge than you do.

Actually, the position is still equal, whether or not the opponents are. Are we talking about the position or skill level?

I used to play the French Defense until a couple of years ago. It used to be my main defense against 1.e4. The Exchange was just another variation I needed to know. What pissed me off is when they play passive stuff like 2.d3 or Qe2.

Now I just bring it to them with 1. ... e5. I can still play French whenever I want to since I created my own philosophy behind it and held my own.

"Painfully obvious logic" ... what a pathetic attempt to establish yourself as an authority

Anyway, if you want to just cherry pick a position and say it proves some point, I can do the same and "prove" the opposite point. It's clear that's not going to get very far.

Post #28: Ironically, while the game has opened up (slightly) more, the potential for the game to open up has reduced greatly, because again the pawns on d4 and d5 are hard to remove at this point. There is a possible c pawn break, but that's it and it's often nothing special. In any case I already said why an opening of the e file is hardly useful, and hardly the kind of situation where an extra tempo would matter. I won't explain it again.

It's not to say that white can't try to get an advantage, but it is certainly much more difficult to do so.

Then why do we discuss anything, lol.

Why white would go about voluntarily playing the exchange and solving blacks 'problem bishop' is probably the same reason I played it when starting out - I was told to play it by my coach because it's less theroy intensive than the main lines. Just play natural developing moves and play an equal position out. When you start to get a bit more along the way, the strategy of using the 'problem bishop' to white's advantage can be better understood and thoughts of the exchange variation fall to the way-side.