Why is French preferred over Caro in Master level chess?
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Basically the title, I find the Caro a superior version of French defence with the light squared bishop out of the pawn chain. The pawn structures arising from both the opening is almost the same, with white having a space advantage. Yet at master level, players play the French more than Caro (eg :- Yesterday in candidates Pragg vs Fabi)
@1
There are several reasons.
- ...e6 is a developing move: opens the diagonal for Bf8 and thus prepares castling ...O-O, while 1...c6 only opens a diagonal for Qd8
- ...c6 obstructs the natural square of Nb8
- ...c6 loses a tempo to play ...c5, e.g. 1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 c5
- In the Caro-Kann 3 Nc3 or 3 Nd2 compel black to give up the center with 3...dxe4, while in the French black can play 3 Nc3 Bb4, or 3 Nc3 Nf6, or 3 Nd2 Nf6, or 3 Nd2 c5 besides 3...dxe4.
- The Caro-Kann exchange 3 exd5 holds more prespective for white than the French exchange 3 exd5 which is equal.
Apr 12, 2024
0
#3
I agree with #2 and also 1… e6 has a psychological aspect that it is more flexible. White only has 4 3rd move choices.
3. Nc3 gives Black 3 choices that White needs to learn, 3… Nf6, 3… Bb4, 3… dxe4, and many other 3rd move ideas that can be good if White doesn’t know what to do.
3. Nd2 gives Black 3 choices again, 3… c5, 3… Nf6, and 3… dxe4.
3. e5 gives Black several 5th moves, 5… Bd7, 5… Qb6.
3. exd5 doesn’t give Black much choice but the position is simply equal.
3. Nc3 gives Black 3 choices that White needs to learn, 3… Nf6, 3… Bb4, 3… dxe4, and many other 3rd move ideas that can be good if White doesn’t know what to do.
3. Nd2 gives Black 3 choices again, 3… c5, 3… Nf6, and 3… dxe4.
3. e5 gives Black several 5th moves, 5… Bd7, 5… Qb6.
3. exd5 doesn’t give Black much choice but the position is simply equal.
It's not!
Why do people make such assumptions?
Both have there pros and cons
Apr 12, 2024
0
#5
@Lelouch_alive_indeed
Why do you assume that beginners or at best amatuers know why masters prefer something?
tygxc wrote:
There are several reasons.
Do you really have some data that supports the OP's claim? There is probably a way to determine which opening is more popular in "master level" chess. but I can't think of any right now.
@7
"Do you really have some data that supports the OP's claim?"
++ Look at top level events: World Championship Matches, Candidates' Tournaments...
Most played: 1 e4 e5, then 1 e4 c5, then 1 e4 e6, then 1 e4 c6
Lelouch_alive_indeed wrote:
Basically the title, I find the Caro a superior version of French defence with the light squared bishop out of the pawn chain. The pawn structures arising from both the opening is almost the same, with white having a space advantage. Yet at master level, players play the French more than Caro (eg :- Yesterday in candidates Pragg vs Fabi)
Players like Pragg and Fabi know all the main openings and defenses inside and out. Caro, French, ...e5, Sicilian - they're all tucked into their toolbelts.
What they choose to play in any given game depends on both psychology (choosing what styles to play against certain opponents, depending on the current tournament score) and on what they chose to prep beforehand.
tygxc wrote:
@7
"Do you really have some data that supports the OP's claim?"
++ Look at top level events: World Championship Matches, Candidates' Tournaments...
That is 0.001 percent of all master level games.
Apr 12, 2024
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#10
Lichess masters database, limited to games since 2020.
Answer to the question?: It's not.
Apr 12, 2024
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#11
(In prior decades, though, the French was preferred, sometimes by as much as a 2-1 margin. In the 80s, the Caro was actually less common than the combined Pirc/Modern. More often, though, it was thought of as a slightly-lesser cousin to the French, and treated as being of roughly equal stature.)
Apr 12, 2024
0
#12
Lelouch_alive_indeed wrote:
Basically the title, I find the Caro a superior version of French defence with the light squared bishop out of the pawn chain. The pawn structures arising from both the opening is almost the same, with white having a space advantage. Yet at master level, players play the French more than Caro (eg :- Yesterday in candidates Pragg vs Fabi)
One is not superior over the other.
With the French, yes you have the bad Bishop. However, you attack white's center immediately with ...c7-c5 and hit d4 as hard as possible, as quickly as possible.
With the Caro-Kann, you go c7-c6 because wah wah, my Bishop will be bad if I play ...e6, and you fiddle around, getting that Bishop out, which is still a bad Bishop, it is simply outside the pawn chain and your queenside light squares are weak. After you go dilly-dallying around with that Bishop for 100 years, and finally play ...c6-c5, moving a pawn twice to attack White's center, he is all solidified and developed, and here you are with half your pieces undeveloped just to get that Bishop out.
Long live the French!
tlay80 wrote:
Lichess masters database, limited to games since 2020.
That doesn't mean anything... all that does is cite is trends.
You must be young (or younger than me...) not a bad thing, but with age you see familiar trends.
In the late 90s early 2000s people said the exact opposite... Anand got on a winning streak against the French. destroyed anyone who essayed 1..e6 People said the French was a weak. It's Subpar... locks in the Queen's bishop .. bla.. bla.. bla... its not a fighting defense... etc etc... around the same time , Karpov discovers his playing style really gels with the Symslov Var of the Caro-Kann. He goes almost a year with an elo performance of something like 2890. No one could beat him. " The Caro Kann is so much better than the French!!! " was all you heard.
Opening trends come and go...
Apr 12, 2024
0
#14
pcalugaru wrote:
tlay80 wrote:
Lichess masters database, limited to games since 2020.
That doesn't mean anything... all that does is cite is trends.
It sounds like you think I was implying something about the Caro being better or worse. Not sure where you're geting that.
Trends are what the OP asked about. The question was: Why is the French is more popular than the Caro at the master level? I merely pointed out that it isn't. That seemed particularly worth doing since most of the replies up to that point were implicitly or explicitly buying into the (incorrect) premise that it is in fact more popular. (Not all -- you were one of two who correctly guessed that the premise is wrong, and part of my point was to confirm with data what you had asserted without.)
tlay80 wrote:
(In prior decades, though, the French was preferred, sometimes by as much as a 2-1 margin. In the 80s, the Caro was actually less common than the combined Pirc/Modern. More often, though, it was thought of as a slightly-lesser cousin to the French, and treated as being of roughly equal stature.)
This is it. Karpov did a lot to bring the Caro back to prominence among the elite, often using it in his most important games, which was a bit shocking at the time. The Caro is now seen as a little bit better than the French at the elite level. Below the elite level the Caro can be an incredible drawing weapon. The Caro is basically the French without the possibility of getting blown away in the opening.
pcalugaru wrote:
In the late 90s early 2000s people said the exact opposite... Anand got on a winning streak against the French. destroyed anyone who essayed 1..e6 People said the French was a weak. It's Subpar... locks in the Queen's bishop .. bla.. bla.. bla... its not a fighting defense... etc etc... around the same time , Karpov discovers his playing style really gels with the Symslov Var of the Caro-Kann. He goes almost a year with an elo performance of something like 2890. No one could beat him. " The Caro Kann is so much better than the French!!! " was all you heard.
Opening trends come and go...
Anand has actually played the Caro Kann as black, but never the French.
brianchesscake wrote:
pcalugaru wrote:
In the late 90s early 2000s people said the exact opposite... Anand got on a winning streak against the French. destroyed anyone who essayed 1..e6 People said the French was a weak. It's Subpar... locks in the Queen's bishop .. bla.. bla.. bla... its not a fighting defense... etc etc... around the same time , Karpov discovers his playing style really gels with the Symslov Var of the Caro-Kann. He goes almost a year with an elo performance of something like 2890. No one could beat him. " The Caro Kann is so much better than the French!!! " was all you heard.
Opening trends come and go...
Anand has actually played the Caro Kann as black, but never the French.
maybe you skipped over "Anand got on a winning streak against the French. destroyed anyone who essayed 1..e6 "
or...
English is NOT your native language; For clarification :
Anand AS WHITE (being mostly an 1.e4 player ) at that time, had a huge plus score against the French defense.
Uhohspaghettio1 wrote:
tlay80 wrote:
(In prior decades, though, the French was preferred, sometimes by as much as a 2-1 margin. In the 80s, the Caro was actually less common than the combined Pirc/Modern. More often, though, it was thought of as a slightly-lesser cousin to the French, and treated as being of roughly equal stature.)
This is it. Karpov did a lot to bring the Caro back to prominence among the elite, often using it in his most important games, which was a bit shocking at the time. The Caro is now seen as a little bit better than the French at the elite level. Below the elite level the Caro can be an incredible drawing weapon. The Caro is basically the French without the possibility of getting blown away in the opening.
Karpov did indeed!
The Caro-Kann has been around since the 1850s. That said...
It really took off when the Hypermodern crowd in the 1920s took it up (Nimzowitsch, Reti, Euwe, Bogoljubov etc etc) even Capablanca starts using it around that time.
Somewhere in the 1950s the Soviets start using it. Botvink, Petrosian, Bronstien etc
IMO... the biggest defenders of the Caro-Kann were/are.... Salomon Flohr, Anatoly Karpov & Aleksey Dreev
No opening between the two is better than the other. Someone above posted the pros of the french. Well someone can do the same for the caro (no cramped position, no chance on lower ratings for greek gift, no chance for white to kill the game with the exchange variation, easier gameplan for black and others). Anyway it's just a matter of preference. Some really strong players of nowadays that use the Caro are Firouza, Artemiev, Kreymer, Howell and of course David Navara. So even GMs use it a lot.
@17
"Anand has actually played the Caro Kann as black, but never the French."
++ Anand has played the French Defense in 28 games and the Caro-Kann in 99 games.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1240665