best variations to play against french defence

Yeah now that I'm thinking about it, I remember seeing a video about the Advanced French where it talked about the ...c4 line. It said that Akobian has played it a lot and that black usually castles long.

The 9.h4 idea is played before 10.Bh3 for a number of reasons.

First off, castling Kingside for Black is kinda odd.  Not sure why he did it.  The h4 push prior to Bh3 is that often times a Knight will use h2 to go from f3 to g4.  Another reason is to avoid ...g5 ideas by Black if he does castle the other way (again, more typical).  It also avoids the ...h7-h5-h4-xg3 trash and Black using the open h-file to attack.  All around, it just makes more sense than to block it on h2, not giving the Knights the ability to manouver, and encouranging h-pawn storms by Black.

The reason for the Nf1 move was to re-route the Knight from d2 to e3 and possibly attack f5 if a Bishop for Knight trade is made, with Black capturing with the pawn, or to be re-routed to g4 instead of the f3-Knight going there thru h2.

While Queenside is the way to castle, Black must not do it on move 9.  Too early.  He needs to get the Bishop developed to e7 first as otherwise, Ng5 is very awkward for Black, and even worse if a Knight also sits on e7 at the point when Black castles (i.e. 9...Ne7 and 10...O-O-O)

Queenside is the way to go, but getting the Kingside minor pieces out, the Knight to either c6 or thru c8 to b6 after a Queen move, and the Bishop to e7.  Then castle Queenside.  Ng5 is then stupid and useless.

The one youre comfortabe playing.

To bad Kasparov (who happened to be ridiculously succesfull against the french) didnt know that thiller thought the tarrasch was bad. He may have had an even better win percentage against it if he knew.

I highly recommend you look at Chessbase DVD series by Rustam Kasimdzhanov: Beating the French Vol 1-3. . These dvd help me a lot on understanding what is French player is. Second thing would I sugest to look at Karpov variation

I like playing either side of the French. Likewise the Nimzo.

Both lead to imbalanced, dynamic games and I can root for whichever side of the board I find myself on.

The other day I had the fun of winning a game with the French Fort Knox.

My opponent outrated me 130 points and he had beaten me once before with the Tarrasch. I was Black again and didn't want to take the chance of losing to him twice that way. (This is Slow Chess.)

I figured he'd go at me again with the Tarrasch, and he did, so I tripped him up playing the Fort Knox. I had had a difficult week and was content with a draw.

This plan worked well. He muffed the opening so I equalized quickly, then he pushed a bit too hard and I came out on top.

So White Frenchies out for blood -- better have a plan in place for the Fort Knox.

Luckily enough, I don't have to worry about this.  BLOCKADE is the name of the game.  Push that puppy to e5 before Black gets the opportunity to take!  See post 68 (well, WAS 68, now showing as 64) - Blast them Frenchies to pieces!  1...e5 or 1...c5 is better.

Didn't Kasparov play 3.Nc3 most his career?

Against the french Kasparov played 3 Nc3 most often , 26 games scoring 71% , his second most frequent choice was 3 Nd2 , 18 games with 92 %  !  

Fischer, on the other hand, struggled with the French as White. It's fun to look at those games.

I have a file of 993 Fischer games. Of those, only 65 were French Defenses, and they break down:

Games %Win %Draw %Loss
  65 [0.51  0.23  0.26] French

Considering many of his opponents weren't near his strength, these aren't inspiring statistics. Breaking the games out by ECO code, we see that most of these were Winawers.

Games %Win %Draw %Loss
  14 [0.36  0.21  0.43] C19 French, Winawer, Advance
  12 [0.75  0.17  0.08] C11 French
   8 [0.38  0.50  0.12] C16 French, Winawer
   7 [0.71  0.14  0.14] C15 French, Winawer
   7 [0.57  0.00  0.43] C18 French, Winawer
   5 [0.60  0.40  0.00] C10 French
   4 [0.00  0.50  0.50] C17 French, Winawer, Advance
   3 [0.33  0.33  0.33] C12 French, McCutcheon
   2 [1.00  0.00  0.00] C00 French Defense
   1 [1.00  0.00  0.00] C14 French, Classical
   1 [0.00  0.00  1.00] C13 French
   1 [0.00  0.00  1.00] C03 French, Tarrasch

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1017839

ThrillerFan is a FIDE 2100 ish player, i.e much better player than most contributing to this forum. Anyway find it useful to checkout what the otherside think is dangerous. For example in Euwe variation with Bd7, he mentioned white had some new ideas in be2. Have been checking out the ne7-g6 lines in Aagards Quality chess book. Not seeing obvious problems but to be honsest what is new or old isn't known to me because have mostly played the traditional Qb6. So even though the advance is more dangerous for black than some might think, it is not likely to stop most french players because it is the most typical french pawn structure. Also can choose heavily positional lines like for example c4 against a3 in the traditional line with Qb6, where understanding of the play more important than any plus equal signs.

e4 e6. d4 d5. Nc3

I've seen a number of experts on the French recommend the Exchange variation for players rated under ~1600 FIDE. They generally recommend 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.ed5 ed5 4.c4. I ran the stats and White scores really well in that line among class players.

I still believe that any such player who really wants to improve should learn the Advance Variation. That teaches the importance of pawn chains, how to defend and take advantage of a spatial advantage, and other Nimzo ideas.

Above the 16xx level, 3. Nc3 and 3. Nd2 are just as good as the Advance Variation.

Your online blitz rating means nothing when it comes to your fide rating. My blitz rating is 450 points lower than my USCF, means nothing. I'm sure Thriller is a strong player

b3 can be quite interesting against 1...e6