What's your favorite way to crack the French Defense?

Unfortunately, studying is the ony way out of helplessness when it comes to openings. That's pretty much why I started learning it too/aside from transpositions from 1.d4 e6.

I play the French in bullet. Only in bullet. Any thing faster than 2 minutes is the sicilian thank you very much ;)

a weird sicilian at best, I prefer my nice solid nadjorf, no e6 for me until move 7

Yes, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 c5?! is bad. White simply plays 3.d5! and reaches a Franco-Benoni position where only two results are likely.

Stay strait:           
No.  Crack the french when, "HIGH"

            Bob Cat:

nc6?? thats not the main line 

That isn't the main line either. Black plays 7...cxd4 8.cxd4 f6 9.exf6 Nxf6 and after 10.0-0 or 10.Nf3 he puts the bishop on d6 and decides where to put his queen(actually the main way of playing the position is to put it on c7 instead).

Qb6 is a variation recommended by Watson in the 2nd Edition of Play the French. In the 3rd Ed he started to recommend 3...Be7.

Spud, Watson's recommendations don't automatically make a line the "main line". But who says there's only a single main line anyway?

My favorite method to crack the French Defense is of course the Elizabethian Gambit: Declare yourself owner of all the squares and subject the black pieces to slavery, thus making their king your pawn.

Watson recommended Qb6 as a playable & tricky alternative to the main line. "Main Lines" are pretty much determined by GM practice and can be pretty much seen in databases as the #1 choice. It doesn't mean the move is the best, just the most played over the years. Personally, I wouldn't play the Be7 stuff for anything.

Looks good to me.

ah no if you watch any game whatsoever you know that people don't immediadiatley take the exchange with cxd since white can do the same which means there is no 2 to 1 pawn majorityand if you know anything about the french then you would know that the point of it is to put massive pressure on whites pawns not to exchange and relieve the tension do some research before you post please

blasterdragon, in the Tarrasch Black pretty much has to take on d4 or accept a worse position in that line.

I don't know what "any games" have you been watching but if you look closely you'll see that "my research" was done before posting, so yeah...

yes you are right but i was just commenting on whites mainline