Idea in French Defence

I saw this idea in a magazine some time ago but only got a chance to play it for the first time in a bullet game(1 min each and no increment) yesterday. I thought the times would make the game very low on quality but I managed to play it quite well. We we both rated about 1950 on the site. Obviously in longer times white would play better, but its a nice line that can catch people out if they play the normal Qd2 and 0-0-0. Instead they have to either take on c5 before going queenside or castle kingside, in either case white should be fine but he avoids the heavy on theory a6 and cd4 lines and so white may not know how to handle the position. The idea is 7...Be7 instead of the theoretical 7...a6 or 7...cd4. And of course it has the nasty trap shown in the game below.

nice

Very interesting!! and a lovely game.

I've lost to this as white before sooo many times.... :)

I'm currently trying to find the magazine that I got the idea from, the game it showed is'nt in my database, I'm pretty sure they were both at least 2300.

I like playing the French from both sides and if I didn't know better 7...Be7 looks pretty innocuous and so I would probably just castle queenside as normal too. Its amazing that such a slow looking idea as 9...c4! can work and actually leave white struggling. I think the reason it can work even with high rated players is that closing the center like that is unusual as it would normally give white a free attack on the kingside.

Yes yes I see it exactly the same way. But I think a key question is  can this line be played if White doesn't bite and castles 0-0? 

Yes I only had a very quick look at going kingside, there is very little theory that I can find. I would assume white is better, but in a lot of cases the winner would simply be the better player. In a game between Morozevich and Kamsky, Morozevich seemed to get a fine position from the opening, he followed up with queenside expansion with a6 and b5-b4 as you would against 0-0-0 and the positions look to me as playable as any other but there could well be a line that is very good for white.

Right I have found the game I had looked at and got the idea from, the analysis is by Andrew Greet:

Aside from what you mentioned above, it simply avoids bringing a white knight to d4 and maintains the tension! A bishop would be more active on c5 but often a strong blockade on d4 keeps it from doing too much right? Black can keep the pawn on c5, always attacking the center yet not allowing a knight on d4, and still has flexibility to capture or play c4. I wonder what's so good about 7...cxd4?

I just checked what Lev Psakhis has to say about it in his excellent series of books on the French and he says that white rarely does without dc5 in these lines which is quite interesting. The positions resulting from having a knight on f3 and the black bishop on e7 seems to have a subtle change to the normal lines, and white seems to move his knight to d4 later anyway. The differences that it creates are lost on me at the moment, I'll need to have a closer look, perhaps it is the knight coming to c5 so early?:

Well to me a knight being on c5 after recapturing seems better than white taking out a tempo and then playing nd4 himself (Edit: actually, forget that. In reality white isn't losing time compared to ...cxd4 lines [even GM Neil Mcdonald made the mistake of saying so. It brings the knight to c5, but it doesn't give black extra time.], because actually dxc5 does in fact gain some time too by forcing black to recapture soon at least. white playing dxc5 and nd4 has the same amount of time loss as him being forced to recapture if black plays ...cxd4. Still I do think it's a little redundant to have the bishop attacking such a solid square when it's on c5, but then you could argue black may want to trade off this bishop). The bishop on e7 seems fine to me as it defends some dark squares and on c5, though it challenges d4, that's nothing huge since white usually has that square covered so much anyway. I like the looks of a knight on c5, it's just an all around good piece.

What exactly is wrong with the normal queenside expansion ...a6 and ...b5?

Maybe with knights on c5 and and f3 means white can play f5 in some lines due to there being less pressure on e5 and without a piece on d4 the queen or later rook will put pressure on d5 discounting a ef5 in reply to a f5. I don't know, but in anycase it all looks playable, interesting positions. The normal a6 and b5 expansion does look like it might be ok. I will certainly be trying it out in over the board games if I get the chance, you have the possibility of a quick win if they fall into the trap and even if they don't it seems to give interesting positions that are a bit different to the main cd4 lines which are highly theoretical and you have to make sure you are up to date on all the new moves. And if Morozevich has played it against people like Kramnik and Ivanchuk then it must be ok.

Well, Morozevich plays a lot of things...

True. He's very creative, I like that in a player though. With others saying you have to play a6 or cd4 he says why not Be7, what's wrong with it?

Yeah, sometimes super gms seem to stick to what they know too much. Of course I'm not saying that's bad for them, but people like Morozevich make you realize just how many playable ideas there are in chess.