Whites most testing lines against the Open/Closed Tarrasch French

1) it's the most common move at 2200+ level, so yes, it will be played and this is not irrelevant. Furthermore, I've already told you this move is emblematic of the c5 positions - there is a big difference between someone being under pressure for 1 move vs. at many points throughout a set of lines.

2) your comment on hope chess demonstrates your simplistic and dull mentality about the game, and honestly it's why you're still only 2100 after 40 years. Because you do nothing remarkable or interesting. 
- Firstly, differences between this and "hope chess" include a) the precise followup that's prepared, b) the fact white isn't risking the game, the positions is still fundamentally sound, c) the intention to evade the opponents algorithm, which is not the intention in hope chess.

But when you play a line that's offbeat, if it's also very sharp / obscure, yes, that is a good thing - this should be obvious.

When GMs play the Jobava it is in hope that their opponents will be less familiar with the positions. That is, infact, the rationale of playing it.

When GMs prepare the 7th highest rated engine move on move 10... even doing this in classical WC matches... the rationale is the same.

Philosophically you can disagree all you like, it's a much broader conversation but, if anything, the evidence we can gather from top level play - along with statements made by many top level players - supports my position and does not support yours. Odd novelties are the norm at top level play today, not the exception. Your style does not get a player very far beyond where you're at currently - and you've been plateaued for a long time.

- your criticism is again purely philosophical, i.e. it is ultimately stylistic and opinion-based, and no basis for making factual claims. It reflects your personality / personal hangups more than it does particulars about the line. In a sense this sort of comment is fundamentally useless in a conversation such as this, you can't get anywhere with it.

Your logic would also apply to a very wide number of other commonly played lines.

For example, we could apply this same logic to virtually all Nc3 or c3 based queens pawn openings, sidelines in e4 such as the vienna, most anti-sicilians... most moves for white other than c4, d4, e4, or Nf3. Including your polish opening; to the Levitsky which you were exalting earlier; even to the Trompowsky, since it's objectively equal.

There's no consistency, rhyme or reason in your argument. Fundamentally you are just an arrogant and somewhat dogmatic / dense individual and honestly - after 40+ years of chess and the amount of time you've put into this, the fact you're not rated higher than 2100 is actually very unimpressive to me. You're nothing special, and I can just inspect your thought process and tell that. It is incoherent, shallow, and very predictable.

Keep trying though

Again, the issue here is this is a philosophically-based criticism which can be applied to many commonly played lines, and infact you have done so in the past. You've made the same argument before against commonly played lines such as the Jobava.

But because it's purely philosophical in nature, it is a) not really worth debating since the entire conversation has been had before, b) is saying not much in particular about this line.

As for your comment on hope chess - refer to the post above for my response.

f6 is a good line. According to the engine whites counter is quite odd, it's to play Bd3 > Kf1 (it makes sense, the intent of g3 was actually to walk the king to g2). I admittedly would not have found Bd3 > Kf1 over the board, I looked at the position and didn't see a great response to f6. This line will require some study.

Most black players can't help themselves and they play Bb4+, which only gives white free tempo, since the king is walking to g2 regardless

There is no use in keeping trying.

Common sense goes right over your head. You will be 1500 for ever because you can't accept the facts and simply just figure that if you spew enough baloney, something will stick.

Well, nothing of yours sticks. It simply stinks. And the fact that you basically have the attitude of a Nazi when it comes to chess, there is no arguing with your insanity. So this is the last post of mine you will see in this thread. You think you're a know-it-all. You need to move to Charlotte, North Carolina - I will tell them on Tuesday Night to pair you against me every week. Time control is Game in 80 minutes with a 10 second increment per move. It's one game every week. We'll play for $100 per game! Prove yourself!

a) I'm 19-1 in daily with 1 abandonment on move 1, simply because I forgot the game existed, with a rating of 1500, i.e. have never really lost a game. In what world am I going to remain 1500... This has been pointed out to you.... just mentally follow the line on the graph and continue drawing where it ends, you can do it. If you can't... perhaps you're having a stroke, you should call 911 immediately.
Is that what you're doing - flinging obvious baloney at the wall? Seems like it.

b) You actually started this little "argument" here, by very arrogantly asserting an ill-formed opinion, which I then picked apart. It's been mostly posturing, ego stroking, but very little substantive argument about the line. Hence I can only interpret your statement on authoritarianism as a massive projection, since arbitrarily flexing of your authority appears to have been your main motive from the beginning. It just didn't work out the way you wanted, unfortunately. Of course, such types of people don't like it when they get pushback. But I happily provide it, and will continue. So keep projecting.

If you had the ability to introspect you would learn from this experience, and watch how you approach people in future interactions, but you lack that ability unfortunately.

c) There is no way in tarnation I would move to North Carolina to play you chess. For one, all the games would result in boring positions due to your playstyle. Secondly, you would be horrible company. But it's sufficient that I've thoroughly dispensed with your poor argument, which was not hard.

Carry onward!

I’m confused.

You say my criticism is philosophical based?

Is their a different way to give criticism which is also constructive?

I could say the position your showing looks terrible, but it doesn’t seem helpful to say it.

The above position is what your enemies at the chess board will see!

The move 2.Nd2 might be rare, but the only people who will be afraid of such a move is weaker chess players.

The negative marks of the move 2.Nd2

- blocks in Dark Bishop

- obstructs the Queen defense of d4 pawn.

The positive marks of the move 2.Nd2

- prepares c4

- prepares e4

- can clam down on the c5 square

- the knight on d2 is a common move played in tons of different variations

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The above are the virtues of the move, but some can be ruled out immediately.

- Playing Nd2 to prepare a c4 pawn push would be stupid because you can just play c4 on move 2 and Queen Gambit is 1 of most solid lines in all of chess.

- Playing Nd2 to prepare a e4 pawn push isn’t really good either because your opponent can block such push with Nf6 move and you will not be able to add in pressure with Bg5 due to your Knight on d2 vs. c3.

- Playing Nd2 does have a short term value of being able to play a quick Nb3 clamping down on the c5 square with the help of the d4 pawn (It isn’t very clear on why a person would do that)

- Playing Nd2 does have a long term value of being a very common move used in multiple positions which gives the line flexibility in transposing, but the timing on the move is highly debatable.

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As explained above, The Negative aspects of the move far out weight the benefits when you go over the benefits with a fine comb.

In addition, the benefits of the move wouldn’t be considered valuable enough to be played in the early stages of an opening.

A Chess Coach would say you have mismanaged your opening.

You are playing a inconsequential move in the opening when you should have a sense of urgency

As White, you have the opportunity to move before Black giving you the ability to claim territory/space before your opponent or disrupt your opponent making it difficult for them to claim space or develop smoothly.

Your inconsequential move has done none of the above.

You have squandered and nullified your own white pieces.

In this position, I like the move 2…Nf6 shutting down any e4 plans.

The move 2.Nd2 only real threat in my eyes is to enable e4 and when I play Nf6 I shut all hope of e4 down. If you want to play e4, it will be as pawn sacrifice at this point

I have shut White position down.

I wouldn’t be afraid of the move Nd2.

I wouldn’t be panicking.

I wouldn’t care about any of your preparation.

In this position, I’m like DUDE your playing for team Black as well? Right on Buddy!

It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of players respond with 2…c5 over 2…Nf6.

I like 2…Nf6 because I am a very restrictive type of player.

However, I can see a lot of people playing c5.

If White isn’t going to play a Queen Gambit, Then Black players will with colors reversed.

If you take with white pieces, it is just Queen Gambit accepted with reverse colors.

Black can try to be aggressive with e5 or they can try to take the position slow with e6.

All of the above can be figured out over the board.

The person playing Black could come up with all these conclusions during the game even if they have never seen your move before.

Another terrifying thing is the person your playing against might know how to play Queen Gambit accepted better vs. you.

The QGA could be part of their own repertoire with Black pieces so they would be playing against their own line which could make things a nightmare.

Nothing is more frustrating vs. playing a person who plays the same line as you.

‘They will know ins and outs of the position + they will know the best lines to really give you hardship. Gosh, it can be so frustrating.

If you're extrapolating philosophical principles from an analysis of the position that's one thing, but in your case it's actually the reverse - the philosophy is leading you to a predetermined conclusion: in your arguments you only go about 3 moves deep into the opening, you're not doing any applied analysis... this is not useful. You're really just not a fan of the line because it's an equal-ish position for white and you dislike such positions on principle. From that I see no progress to be made, since we've debated this before in the context of many other openings - openings played at GM level including the Jobava and others... we had a very prolonged debate about the Van Geet where you argued the same thing. This line is objectively better than the Van Geet... the Van Geet is played at high level, there are 2300 players on this site who use it. I've seen gingerGM recommend it. I think I have quite a strong philosophical justification for my view. Many others agree with me, though there are some who don't - we could call the disagreement stylistic. But I'm not really here asking the question: "do you like my style? Do you share the same style?" - but that seems to be the question that gets answered most of the time.

Infact, I did not petition for anyones opinion on this line to begin with, this thread is about the French. Dogmatists have volunteered their ill-formed opinions, however none of them thus far have demonstrated an understanding of the line, and I've seen pretty much nothing from them I couldn't easily address.

What your saying is not true!

I have no predetermined conclusion because no one has ever played this line against me.

It is impossible to have a conclusion based on a new position I have just seen on this thread.

This is why I went to the added lengths of explaining the Pro’s & Con’s of the position.

I didn’t outright dismiss the position because every position should have its fair chance.

I read the position and tried discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the position as to determine what I think about the position.

My conclusion was the line looks to be slightly favoring Black, but the small advantage Black has might not amount to anything. It might end up as equal position where upon the better player could try to win the game.

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Anyway, I don’t discourage people from playing different lines or openings.

I don’t care if a line is equal or completely losing that has nothing to do it.

I believe people should play the lines they enjoy.

It seems you are completely misjudging me in this whole situation.

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I thought you wanted helped?

My analysis of the position never went beyond 3 moves because you never responded to the statements I said.

You kept showing diagrams of Black playing d4, but you never said what you plan to do if your opponent plays Bxc5 which I suggested previously.

Also, I explained to you how the move e4 seemed a little wrong.

I was recommending c4.

You never really said if you had plans of playing c4 or if you was just committing to e4.

Are you trying to find ideas on how to play the positions above? Or no?

For the record, The original post in this thread was the Open/Closed Tarrasch for white side.

I always played the Rubstein Fort Knox variation as Black and I never really tried Tarrasch as white.

For the above reasons, I never said anything about those positions because I didn’t want to give misinformation as I don’t play them.

I thought you already got the answer you was searching for on page 1.

It seemed like you was asking about new position afterwards and that is when I began commenting.

@Compadre_J you made your post after I'd just finished a long debate with the rabid animal in the thread earlier, so maybe it was just bad timing and I assumed you were joining in. Perhaps I misjudged the situation.

Regarding your post on e4 vs. c4 - I think c4 is also a fine move, although I would actually play b4 if I played something else here. But I do think e4 is sharper than either. I choose sharper / more unstable simply due to the unique circumstance in this opening, where I will know the line (it's an early deviation) and I can also assume black never will. On a practical level I just think any finer points of contention will be completely overshadowed by that. Furthermore... there's how punishing the wrong moves in the position are. Like I showed you d4, but dxe4 can be quite insane. Statistically that will yield wins is the bottom line.

Anyway... that said, we can still analyze it.

This is the line I'd play in your scenario. It's an immediate counterattack which requires precision. There's two good moves from black here, 5... Nf6 and 5...Qb6.

The tempting move 5... dxe4 is down a full pawn immediately. White is +1.16 here, it's almost winning with precise play. When I said these lines are all full of only-move scenarios which can be misleading, I meant it:

There are only 3 2200+ games on lichess ever played here, but in all of them 5... dxe4 is what got played.

Anyway.... let's look at the only 2 good moves.

In this position the only move that isn't quite bad for black is 6... Nf6, which evaluates about +0.04. Everything else leads to quite big advantages for white immediately, including 6... dxe4, 6... Be6, 6... Ne7, 6... Bg4.

Anyway, let's say black plays it right:

The same sort of thing is true here - there is one good move for black, 7... O-O. Any other move, like 7... Nxd5, just give white a large advantage, i.e.

Anyway, let's again assume he plays it right -

The same is true here - the only good followup is 8... Qc7 > 9... Nxd5. Most of the other moves white is just way ahead immediately.

So you get the point. It's basically a line that no one will ever know... which also demands precision deep into it - we're talking only-moves - just to maintain rough equality. And even when that does happen - which it never has - white still has a game, white hasn't really risked anything.

So that's 5... Qb6. What about the other move, 5... Nf6.

There are more continuations here, but this line ends up being something like a weird petrovish position that's about equal. Black needs some guts to counterattack here instead of defend the pawn, I don't think it will be most players instincts to play Nf6 since this is a line they don't know.

Anyway, here's one example continuation where to maintain his "equality" black must give up one bishop, and then be willing to give up his second bishop. And again this is the only really "equal" continuation for black here. It's counter-intuitive:

I think the line is going to perform extremely well for white.

The whole "Wormsnake" is like this... it looks like a worm, but it isn't. If I compare these lines to any other queens pawn sidelines like the Jobava, the Veresov, the London, the Torre, the mainline Colle ... even the Trompowsky - these lines are sharper, they're unknown, and they evaluate better in most cases. It's quite amazing actually.

One thing I never quite liked about the Veresov / Jobava / London / Torre... even my mexican defense, is that in certain lines... the game just wasn't sharp. I was playing a sideline, I probably did throw off my opponents prep... but it doesn't apply enough pressure, the game was what I call sloggish. i.e. feels like a London. With this line it's really the opposite, it might be too sharp in certain places.

Now you're not such a Jobava / London kind of guy, so it may not be your style, but for anyone who is... I can't see a good reason I would play one of those lines over this one. This is the only repertoire I've found for white that has so far satisfied every criteria I was looking for, so I'm quite happy about it.

In the 1st Diagram, My top 3 candidates moves were

- Qb6

- Nc6

- Ne7

It’s interesting to hear the computer wants to play Nf6.

I suppose Nf6 is the better square vs. Ne7.

Ne7 drops a pawn without enough initiative to counter attack is the issue.

Nc6 is an okay move, but after exd5 Qxd5 Bc4 white gets a tempo on the queen and still has good pressure on e5. White is doing well and play remains sharp.

And Qb6 is objectively decent, but due to how sharp it is (as I just explained) I consider Nf6 is the only really testing move. Testing in the sense it's technically equal, and there are more variations so white can't just memorize a concrete continuation leading to an advantage, as he can in the other lines. It takes guts to play though, in a position you've never seen before - since it's a counterattack. I personally wouldn't play it if I was seeing this OTB for the first time.

Oookay a 2. Nd2 repertoire. Interestingly I actually did a lot of research into the starting positions and I remember thinking it was so much effort for such little reward to play it, and this is coming from the guy whose plan it was to have an anti-d4 repertoire consisting of the Semi-Slav, Nimzo-Indian, and Stonewall Dutch SIMULTANEOUSLY!! (for reference, 1… Nf6 2… e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 or 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 c6 or 4. g3 Ne4! and this would require me not only to learn all of the mainlines of both the NID and Semi-Slav variations but also some move order tricks in the Stonewall Dutch alongside the mainlines because delaying c6 and playing Ne4 early gives Black more options.)

Anyways, why 3. e4 against 2… e6? Why not the Stonewall with 3. e3 and 4. Bd3 or the one of the Colle systems?

I didn’t look at the Ne7 line extremely deep.

It might be unsound. I’m not sure.

I know White could try taking the e5 pawn, but I feel like White would need to have tons of guts to do it.

The Nd2 part of the repertoire isn't that large. You only play it vs. 1... d5 or 1... Nf6. I have 22 lines for the Nd2 sidelines I need to know. Other than that... it's mainline positions - French tarrasch, Breyer Slav, and a couple Colle lines. It's not that bad. And of those 22 not many are boring, maybe 2. At least half are sharp. The Colle's are the most boring.

Well... a) the tarrasch is just fundamentally sound, you can't really go wrong with it. Admittedly it's well known and that's a downside... b) I think some significant percentage of QGD players will be playing 1... d5 > 2... e6, where I can transpose into the tarrasch. So I just like the idea of playing a QGD player in a theoretical position they don't play usually. Looking at the winrates 3. e4 is very high, I think this is why. I had the same thing often occur in the Van Geet, where a large percentage of Grunfeld / KID players would wind up in a Pirc. It happens.

But I could explore other lines in the future, I haven't settled on most of this. I could even consider playing a stonewall if they start 1... e6, but playing the tarrasch against d5 > e6.

It looks like that might entail learning alot more of the Colle than I'm using now though. I only really play 2 Colle lines in this repertoire - against the early g6 setups, and against Nf6 > e6 where black has blocked in his bishop. And the latter isn't too common.

All the early c5 > dxc5 or triangle lines are very sharp and interesting for white. Really the most boring lines are the Colle lines. There aren't many Nd2 sidelines I dislike.

They're some of the better lines in the Colle though - I would play this repertoire over the mainline Colle 100% of the time. But I probably wouldn't ever play the mainline Colle, so there's that.

@crazedrat

I thought your main opening was the Van Geet (1.Nc3)

Have you started playing a different 1st move instead?

Or is the lines your mentioning just fun sidelines?