French Vs Sicilian

"Overprotection" was vastly overblown as a concept. And A great deal of what he called "My System" had already been written about by Steinitz and even the hated Tarrasch. 

I don't doubt that Petrosian found the book deeply inspirational, but to pretend that Petrosian was great simply because he religiously applied the lessons of My System is complete nonsense. 

next time ill let someone higher rated then me sign up for sicilian 

I don't play e4 so I wonder if I played the opening right.

you let d6 fall and then its game over lol

Overprotection is vastly misunderstood, and not overblown in the slightest.  The offensive purpose behind it is lost on most players.

In any chess position, there will always be weak points, and these weak points will invariably become objects of attack by the opponent.  The purpose of overprotection is that it creates an enormous difference in terms of the dynamic capacity of a given position.

Say you have a weakness, such as the blockaded d4 pawn which often comes up for white in the French Defense.  If that point is attacked twice, and defended twice, then none of the defenders can move off, and exchanges on that square will likely come with loss of tempo.  If it is overprotected, however, then any of the defending pieces can maneuver, and thus perform both offensive and defensive roles.

Take our last challenge, for example.  The French Defense and the Caro-Kann both leave white with a salient weakness on d4.  However, the difference of tempo, the French Defense being faster, means that white does not have time to add an extra defender to that point.  Glance at the Board 1 French game to see the consequences of that.  White (who is an NM, let's remember) could only get "enough" defenders for d4, and so he lost tempo on the pawn exchange, allowing black (@ThrillerFan) to set up a deadly attack on the open c-file.  Meanwhile, white never even got the beginnings of a counterattack going because the pieces defending d4 could not move off without loss of material.

A great many players who've glanced over the "overprotection" chapter missed this point entirely (you can tell by talking to them), and so they overprotect, but then fail to leverage the dynamic mobility such overprotection affords them.  They know how to overprotect, but don't use it to develop tactical threats, which is the whole point of overprotecting in the first place.

Open your eyes, my friend.  See what you've been missing.

@Batman2508 - Why, you ask?  Because everywhere else I have played the Rubinstein variation (and I do get really good results with it), I don't get a chance to use it ever again.  Everyone plays the Advance against me after that.  Not just the person I played, either.  Everyone in/from that club.

I figured after the last challenge, you would have chosen to avoid the Rubinstein.

@kingsindianattack7 - The opening looks pretty good to me.  Well played.

I am going to lose the french game

Looks like the Board 1 games are finally underway.  I can't wait to see how this challenge plays out.

the french is supposed to be hypermodern right? 

not exactly, Dsmith's opinion approves but it is also based on central control and we don't always fianchetto a bishop

In the French?? I’ve never seen someone fianchetto

I mean we sometimes do fianchetto for the light-squared bishop (and then you guys can't complain about it) there is an e6 b6 line which isn't really the french but is a french, we have a fianchetto line against pretty much every variation:

In the classical there are so many variations, and so many you can fianchetto in, I play the Morozevitch where the main plan is a6 b5 Bb7

Rubinstein with b6

VS Tarrasch

Tarrasch with b6 (not sure it is possibly called the Botvinnik)

Advance with b6 (played by some engine in a computer vs computer game)

Hmm I don’t think it would work in the lines I play agaisnt the French lol, but I could see how it could work

wdym

I don’t think I understand lol I’ll have to re-read your msg so consider what I said void lol

i thought @Mr_Winawer would not control centre and expand, since french was hypermodern, hence played f3. Now I hv a difficult game .

Wth did you do in that game???????

idk myself