Suggestions against the French Defence?

I'm a 1.e4 player and I usually have a hard time dealing with the French. I used to play the advance variation (1.e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5), but I could never help losing my central pawns after they got fixed and were attacked. Then I decided to switch to the Paulsen variation (1.e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3), playing the Poisoned Pawn against the Winawer and the Alekhine-Chatard attack in the main line. However, I still found it quite difficult to withstand the pressure against my fixed centre, and I felt nearly forced to start playing the freaking exchange variation. I believe there's a quote by Mikhail Tal that says, "French Defence, exchange variation: the shame!". At least following the trade on d5 I play 4. c4 (the Monte Carlo variation), trying to unbalance the position at least slightly with the likeliness of arriving at an IQP position (with which I'm unfortunately not so familiar either, though). So far I haven't settled on any system against the French, so I welcome suggestions from anyone who wants to share knowledge and/or experience! P.S: I don't really want to play stuff like the KIA or dubious gambits. I'd prefer dynamic but still solid positions.

I play the tarrasch. Its fairly solid and remains interesting enough. It may be particularly interesting depending on your other repertoire because there are a lot of transposition possibilities to other openings.

King's Indian Attack.

 

First of all there is nothing wrong with the KIA. I play the French with black and it is not like a feel a relief when my opponent plays the KIA.

Second , maybe try out the French with black in some blitz games so you understand the positions better. Now that is a bit of a long stretch, so I don't think it is bad if you don't. But I think it is on old Russian advice.

Thirdly some lines.

If you wanna go with the Advance again, the best way to play it is with 6.a3

 But don't play 6.a3 in this following position as then it is not good.

Now black can play Qc7 instead and a3 is a wasted move.

The french advance is very thematic and is more about ideas than about variations. Check some games.

If you wanna go the paulsen way.
Agianst the winawar you can play a delayed exchange, which is a better version of a normal exchange as the black king's bischop is misplaced. Might be a nice line for you because you don't have to care about your fragile center anymore.

Against the classical I don't know what you could do, all lines you have to worry about your center.

 

You didn't mention the Tarrasch. You could try that. 
Maybe the Korchnoi gambit in the Tarrasch, it is not dubious as far as I know, actually most black players (including me) decline the gambit). 

If black declines the gambit you have to ready for this kind of crazy mess though

Hope I was of help, I am not very active on the forums, but I thought I would answer a question in some depth especially when it is about one of my favourite defences.

A small disclaimer though is that I have not much expereince from the white side of the French because I am mostly a 1.d4 player.

Greetings and fermentations.

As mooted elsewhere on this site as far as playing against the French Defence is concerned, there is no quick or universal fix.

I understand your angst but the problem you have in coming to such places to seek input is that you are really never going to wholly get a satisfactory answer. The French Defence is a theoretical top heavy opening which means two things (1) Anything that you adopt, you will need to know well and (2) everyone is going to have at least one dissenting opinion with what you might have been recommended.

To wit. I have always taken the view that I do not like to get into a theoretical battle unless it is on my terms. Thus people who use such methods of defence like the French do (or at least, should) have an idea of what they are doing. That is to erect the ramparts (a semi closed position) and only attack when the situation allows (That is moves like c5, Nf6 or f6 and then Nxf6 etc etc yada yada).

So I looked at systems to cut across this method. I tried the Tarrash but I never could get the hang of the isolated Queen pawn position that resulted from one move order by Black. I have finally settled on four systems for white: Kupreichik's variation in the Advance Variation (5.Be3), Alekhine's Gambit in the Winawer and the related Wolf system in the McCutchen and the wonderfully named Muller-Zhuravlev Gambit. All of these opening ideas have one thing in common is that all open the position up for White given half the chance.

Of course, these will not be to everyone tastes and maybe not even yours.

Good luck

HTH

 

 

How dubious really is the wing gambit in the french defense? I've been thinking about giving it a go and I'm not sure at what level people would be able to take any noticeable advantage of it. What I'm thinking is along the lines of:

 

 

Maybe try:

A Simple Chess Opening Repertoire for White by Sam Collins
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/A_Simple_Chess_Opening_Repertoire_for_White.pdf
http://www.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/A-Simple-Chess-Opening-Repertoire-for-White-76p3916.htm
My First Chess Opening Repertoire for White by Vincent Moret
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9033.pdf

1.e4 vs. The French, Caro-Kann & Philidor By Parimarjan Negi
http://www.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/1-e4-vs-The-French-Caro-Kann-Philidor-76p3875.htm
http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/GMRep-1e4-vol1-excerpt.pdf
How to Beat the French Defence by Andreas Tzermiadianos (2008)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627050257/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen115.pdf
A Chess Opening Repertoire for Blitz and Rapid by Evgeny and Vladimir Sveshnikov
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9020.pdf
Coming soon:
Playing 1.e4 - Sicilian & French by John Shaw

Not enough compensation in the Wing Gambit.  

I'm trying to figure out what the reasoning behind playing 13.Bxh7 was. I can see the advantages black gets from it like the h-file and the c-pawn. Maybe he was hoping for something like 13..g6? but that is the only thing I can really think of.  

 

Interesting was 12.Bb2 protecting the pawn and allowing Qb1 square to go to which can be followed with Qa2. The queen seems to be well placed on b1 in this line.

 

A sample line of the computer showing the idea:

 

 

I thought the compensation was just attacking chances on the queenside and that black seems to have to develop his pieces somewhat awkwardly.

I'm in the process of running a "shootout" computer match analysis of this position to see what some possible endgames look like.

This is intruiging to me because I always felt like ed Bxe4 Nf6 Bf3 c5 would just be a weak position for white...but if not I would be interested in trying it out. What is white's next move after c5? I guess c3?

if you want to annoy your opponent, and who doesn't want to annoy their opponent, play the exchange french.

 

Thanks a lot for the advice and the example lines! It's true that I had noticed I've never played the Tarrasch, and I'm considering giving it a try. About the KIA, I didn't really say there was anything wrong with it (I know Bobby Fischer used to play it), but just that I didn't want to play it. I have, however, tried it a couple times since then and found it very interesting.

The papa ticulat gambit is good to annoy french players

Also I recommend playing the queen knight's defence before playing d4,

Because although majority of people will play this line- some won't and you can punish them for their mistakes

The Reti gambit. Fun to play and you might take many people by surprise.

I play the French as black, and I can tell you that the most challenging and exciting variation as well as the one that offers the most beautiful games is the Winawer variation.

The Exchange is absolutely soundless and dull. You don't get in trouble, but you'll get no advantage out of the opening either.

The Advance looks promising, but white's center will go under heavy fire, as you've already suffered. Not bad, though.

The Tarrasch is not as strong as the Winawer in my opinion, but it's a good alternative, especially the so-called Universal System:

 

There's a time of the month for comments like that, and this isn't it.

I play the advanced variation

just check stockfish for muck better play

 

The Papa Gambit?....that spinning sound you are hearing is Reti turning in his grave at a great rate of knots

#26 ?