How to crush the french defense

Hi,

I wrote a guid how to learn openings and showed some great games with the KIA here

Don't put silly titles. There are engine evaluations at huge depth placing French 1...e6 as the best reply to KP 1. e4. So, if someone "crushes" French, it would crush the whole standard chess.

I never claimed that e6 isn't playable. 

But there are games in the french, where white outplayed his opponents. Fischer's win against magyamarsuren is pretty impressiv

StupidGM: Interesting story ... when U was young.

i never heard of any transposition into the botvinnik from the french

 Who does this guy StupidGM think he is fooling?  This is a guy who wishes he was a good chessplayer but is permanently stuck at 1350 so he says things that he thinks sound sophisticated but aren't.  And like all similar pretenders, he doesn't play on this site.  You can't really transpose into a Panov Botvinnik from a French unless you play ..c6 early in a French.  That would be way passive and white would have to be a moron to let black then transpose into a fine Panov-Botvinnik. You can transpose into PB from other openings.  I try to play PB against queen pawn openings by offering up a Benoni and if they refuse I trade cxd4 and often enter PB lines.  Not that I am any good at it but it suits me.  I've even won a few games that way on chess.com.

As a French player I think this thread should be deleted, for the good of humanity.

When white players play 2.d3 against you, dont you feel more uncomfortable than in these d4-lines?

Since 2.d3 is quite common I feel quite comfortable with it.  It's just another line.  It has it's pluses and minuses

in this case your opponent played really  bad. usually there are quite difficult positions for black 

One game doesn't change the idiocy of your title.

Fischer also got annihilated by the French against Uhlmann in Buenos Aries in 1960!

Your point?  Oh, that's right, you have no point!

I would have to argue that the Exchange is much, MUCH simpler, FOR BLACK THAT IS!!!!

Last weekend, I had Black in the following game.  The task was simple.  Play solid and let White implode.  Once we gets enough weaknesses, you attack!  Below is a copy and paste - no time to put it in board mode.

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bg5 Bg4 6.Be2 Bd6 7.O-O O-O 8.Re1 Nbd7 9.Nbd2 c6 10.c4 Qc7 11.h3 Bh5 12.Rc1 Rfe8 13.Qb3 Rab8 14.cxd5 Nxd5 15.Bc4 N7b6 16.Bxd5 Nxd5 17.Ne4 Bf4 18.Bxf4 Qxf4 19.Ne5 f6 20.Nd3 Qxf5 21.Nd6 Rxe1+ 22.Nxe1 Qd7 23.Ne4 Bf4 24.Qg3 Rd8 25.Rc5 Qe7 26.f3 Re8 27.Nc2 Bg4 28.Nc3 Ne3 29.Nxe3 Qxe3+ 30.Qf2 Qc1+ 31.Kh2 Re1 32.Kg3 h5 33.Ne2 Qd2 34.Nf4 h4+ 0-1

my point is, that a lot of 1.e4-player struggle in the french and 2.d3 might be a good line to get ride of this problem. Why not play the king's indian one tempo up?

According to my Fischer played 2.d3 only on 4 occasions and won 4. But some games are missing like Fischer-Sherwin

What Fischer did is totally irrelevant!

As a French player, I can tell you that the KIA is not as strong as White's strongest move, 3.Nc3.

The people reading this thread are not Fischer's strength, and therefore, trying to mimic something when you clearly don't understand it is useless.  Can you simply watch or listen to Kenny G and then suddenly mimic what he did on the saxophone?  I'll bet you anything in the world that you can't listen to Kenny G's "Songbird" (his most famous) one time and then mimic it yourself flawlessly!

Fischer dates the pre-computer era.  The post-engine generation has more legit reasoning behind the theory at that given time than the pre-computer era, which is where Fischer falls.

NEXT?

that is true, but when someone like fischer plays it, it means that he thought it is not bad.

My point is not that the KIA is stronger, than Nc3, but it is very difficult for both sides. The side who knows is familiar with the ideas will get great positions.

It is not about playing the computer-recommendation. It is enough to have an idea, which is OK.

In fact, Nc3 doesn't promise any advantage. It is an equal position. Especially on our level, people struggle with 2.d3, because the positions, which arise are very complex.

After Nc3, black has a lot of moves... 3...dxe4 3....Bb4 3...Nf6 and all lead to different positions.

against 2.d3 the type of positions which can happen are very different from 3.Nc3. 

I also struggled against the french, until i started playing the KIA.

Every day there are multiple threads with someone claiming to have "crushed", "destroyed", or "refuted" a major, well-known opening. Isn't it interesting that there are tons of amateurs online claiming that e.g. the French or Sicilian can be refuted, but no actual top players ever claim any such thing?

Anyway, I've played the KIA against the French a few times. It's playable, but nothing special. I think when players struggle against the French in the main lines, it's out of fear. You (white) follow your opening principles, make a strong center, develop your pieces, but suddenly! black is attacking your center! saddling you with weak doubled pawns! Oh no! Panic! The thing is, black's position in the French is (a) cramped and (b) inherently weakened on the dark squares. If white plays very aggressively, he can often develop a strong attack that's hard for black to face.

This is an example, a random blitz game I played on here:

https://www.chess.com/live/game/2157751551

I've had many games like this.

I know it is difficult, I wrote this a few times.

Nc6 is a line, also a5 (an idea by moro, if i am not wrong).

I play this line, because it is very complicated, but it isn't very hard to find ideas, because players like Bassem Amin deliver a lot of material.

It can be very tactical, but it can also be a very long positional game. 

I dont claim that there is a refutation of the french. For sure there is no refutation. 

Honestly i cannot remember when i lost the last time against the Winarwer variation, so doubled pawns were not the problem.

one of my recent games in otb chess. opponent was rated around 2100 (rapid 15min)

3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 or 4.e5 and the Winawer main line I guess... Sounds like a lot of work.