France saved the US... If not for their military aid and support the revolutionary movement would have been just another revolt... crushed by the British. In fact, if not for France... there would be NO US... there would be a bunch of little countries instead. So i honestly fail to understand the hostility there? Yet US and Brits seem to love each other.
And the French gave statue of liberty... as a present?!
A grad school friend of mine had a cat who would take bottle caps from the kitchen table. At a party at his house I noticed the cat standing on a kitchen chair pawing at bottle caps on the table. He knocked one off the table and picked it up in his mouth, hopped off the chair and ran away. My friend said, watch this. I followed him to the basement where he showed me a stash of bottle caps behind the hot water heater.
A grad school friend of mine had a cat who would take bottle caps from the kitchen table. At a party at his house I noticed the cat standing on a kitchen chair pawing at bottle caps on the table. He knocked one off the table and picked it up in his mouth, hopped off the chair and ran away. My friend said, watch this. I followed him to the basement where he showed me a stash of bottle caps behind the hot water heater.
Cue a twilight zone episode where instead of cats it's humans and instead of grad school guy it's advanced aliens.
A grad school friend of mine had a cat who would take bottle caps from the kitchen table. At a party at his house I noticed the cat standing on a kitchen chair pawing at bottle caps on the table. He knocked one off the table and picked it up in his mouth, hopped off the chair and ran away. My friend said, watch this. I followed him to the basement where he showed me a stash of bottle caps behind the hot water heater.
Cue a twilight zone episode where instead of cats it's humans and instead of grad school guy it's advanced aliens.
That was supposed to be me in the basement!!!
most lines are dangerous against the french as long as you dont play the exchange variation. black will be extremely well prepared for it its almost everything he faces online
You should play e5. You get a solid position, and if black goes ne7-nf5 and takes your dark squared bishop, your rook will have an open file for an attack. In the ending position in the diagram, white has ideas of Qe1-Qh4 to attack on h7, along with ng5 to attack on h7. This is only one variation, so you will probably have to study the rest.
Edit: After black plays b6 in the diagram, you can play bxh7
But what if black plays 6...c4 ? Wasn t that the main line?
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But what if black plays 6...c4 ? Wasn t that the main line?
if its the position i think it is you cant put your bishop on d3 anymore after he played c4, but you can put it on h3 instead after g3. a frenchplayer wants to get in c5 and f6 but after f6 the e6 pawn becomes weaker and your bishop on h3 aims right at it and its useful
OP, I used to just detest dealing with the French too. Now, it's one of my favorite openings to combat. I even find myself on the verge (fingers crossed...) of winning a French-themed tournament here, chiefly on account of winning with White and muddling through with Black.
Your mileage may varry, but for me, the turning point was when I started playing the absolute main lines, starging with 3. Nc3. You have to put in some effort, but a good book helps, whether a short overview in something like FCO or something really detailed like Negi's 1.e4 vol. 1. In some ways, the most helpful was working through a couple of French games in Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by Move."
When I first started playing, someone taught me the Tarrasch (3. Ne2), and I tried making that work for years, but I kept getting stuck behind pawn chains that I didn't know what to do with. Everyone says it's Black who feels cramped in this opening, and that's not wrong, but it never felt that way when I had White. Of course, there's nothing objectively wrong with the Tarrasch -- I was just playing it in a clueless manner, partly because I hadn't studied it well enough, but also because it was completely out of sympathy with how I think about chess space. Moving to 3. Nc3 made it feel more like a typical 1. e4 opening, where White takes the initiative and has space to work with. If the frustrations you're expressing are similar to mine, then give the main lines a try.
An odd little story:
Back in the late 1960s, when I was a teenager (and yes, the Emu was young once, don't laugh!) rated around 1700, I came up with a novelty in the French Tarrasch, and used it to beat a "French expert" rated about 200 points higher than myself in a local New Brunswick tournament.
My novelty consisted of playing Bg5 followed by Bh4! and Bg3 to exchange off Black's good d6-Bishop and open his dark squares to invasion.
... and a few months later Furman, Geller and Karpov found the same move, and it became quite a popular plan for White in the French Tarrasch.
I later met Karpov, in Saint John in 1988... but I didn't give him a hard time about stealing my move.
I recently played a game against it, while I did made a few mistakes, and an annoying mouse slip, I still struggled like crazy like every single time I come across it. the Sicillian is annoying but not nearly half as the French in my opinion...
What should an e4 player strive to do against the French?
or
What is the goal for a French player?
I started like this, I have a hard time knowing if we should take on d5 or push to e5, what do French expect us to do?
Fianchetto your DSB then exchange your e-pawn. French players hate this more than non-French players hate playing the French. So it makes me feel good getting some passive aggressive justice.
most lines are dangerous against the french as long as you dont play the exchange variation. black will be extremely well prepared for it its almost everything he faces online
I would beg to differ. The exchange variation of the French is quite rare because it leads to a drawish game. However, the Horwitz attack is quite decent.
Wow, emu's a codger!
Get off my lawn!
... dang kids.
#64 is pretty funny, just nobody wants to post single-word comments with 'lol' 
I "got" the joke. Even without a board I can see it's fool's mate.
It's also not funny. Isn't your rating a little too high to think fool's mate is novel enough to be funny?
Shurg.
Paul Morphy played the Exchange Variation happily with white, and you can too! There's something weird when people claim that an opening where every single piece and 14 out of 16 pawns are still on the board is "drawish." Something like 1.e4 e6 2,d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Nf3 followed by c4!? will get you a lively game with plenty f chances for both sides every time