I do not personally play the French but I’m aware of its upsides: even though it is claimed to be a very solid opening it has 2 key characteristics that make it good and fun in my opinion: 1. In many lines the position does not allow easy trades of pieces, making the middle games very interesting and complex 2. Due to the first moves there is nearly always a pawn imbalance (chains of pawns such as c3 to e5 for white and f7 to d5 for black) This 2 characteristics make for complex middle games and interesting endgames which more often than not lead to 3 results games !

I played the French Defense because I wanted to reach the Classical Dutch via 1.d4 e6. As WCh Alekhine said: "Holländer müssen gute Franzosen sein." But I've always feared 3.Nc3 against the French, while having good results with it as White. Nearly a year ago I gave up the Dutch though and hence the French.

You are playing 1.d4 and you are "out of book" after 7moves..? Think about it. I wish you what I wish to myself, improvement and wins in chess. Be better ;) Cheers

Hehe, mogao bi na hrvatskom ali ću na engleskom radi ostalih ljudi.. So why I play the French, to explain that I will go line by line, every serious approach for white.. 1. King`s indian attack, I don`t think its that scary since it doesn`t put any serious pressure on black center and black can arrange their pieces however they want without any trouble.. 2. Exchange variation, it is a bit boring, but it is by far easier to play and get imbalances with black than against exchange Slav, for example in the French version you can easily create imbalances by playing c5 as reccomended by Giri, there are also some other ways, so you can definitely play for a win even agaist that.. 3. Advanced, I personaly think that the advanced is not that practical for white since black has a lot of setups against it, also black has a lead in developement and can apply a lot of pressure against d4 very quickly 4. Nd2 (Tarrasch) I think that it isnt that scary, Nd2 is a passive move and black can play c5 immediately, 3..Nf6 is not that logical since white gets a better version of the advanced, but still playable 5. Nc3 with Bg5, this is a legit line, 3.Nc3 is offcourse the only serious move against the French, I play 3.. Nf6 against it, so against 4. Bg5 black has a line with de4 Ne4 Be7 Bf6 gf6 Nf3 f5 which is very dynamic and interesting for both sides, black has to know his stuff but such is chess.. 5. Nc3 with e5, offcourse the Steinitz, the most dangerous weapon for white, but still, black has a lot of choices and white has to be ready for a lot of them, its a very complicated position where both sides have their chances as seen in a couple of WC games And there is also the Winawer which I never liked, but also perfectly fine, and you can also play the Winawer in many different ways.. Also interesting point is that white does not have a line where he or she can play for easy slight advantage, and people like doing that these days, it is always complicated in french, no escape from that, there is no 2 knights Caro version where white is a bit better without knowing much, or 4 knights Scotch against 1.. e5.. so to summerize, I played a lot of different openings with black, and there is no opening where you can be better after 10-15 moves as frequently as in the French, may be tough to belive but in my experiances it is excatly the case.. Hope it helped..

Where is the taimonov variation

I play it because i play it until I was 12 and its the only thing I ever learned

I will often play french against a lower rated opponent (say -200 points). Without failure they will make positional concessions/mistakes from early on that I can play on for an easy game without having to calculate a single line - what a dream! It feels like I'm just letting my opponent beat themself sometimes. I also get the feeling lower rated opponents are more comfortable facing e4e5 or sicilian and that's where majority of their opening knowledge/understanding lies. I will also sometimes use it against higher rated opponents if I want to create chances in an imbalanced game like a Winawer, particularly if I can know to expect that line and prepare something tricky there. More generally I enjoy playing closed positions where there are some complex strategic imbalances - and the French is great for that! I will avoid playing french altogether if I see my opponent frequently plays 3. exd5 :P

It will be probably good to put the reasons for moving each move,in other ways,👍

[Retyped] (Currently 2100 ccom rapid) I play the French because I get clear pawn breaks and central targets, it avoids what players are most familiar with as White, and I'm used to it & have performed pretty well with it. For my own purposes, I'm significantly more comfortable with an Advance French setup as Black than with a 1. d4 game. I would certainly recommend the French to intermediate players who want an alternative to e4 e5; not many of their opponents will know how to face it, and White's center can crumble quickly. I understand your view if you personally score very well against the French, but of course, people who consistently play it are probably succeeding or at least achieving comfortable positions with the opening themselves. It had a winning record in the latest WCC, as others have mentioned, so it's more than viable even at the very top level. To switch things up, I'm thinking of trying the Sveshnikov, but it might be difficult as I generally learn openings by acclimating to ideas and not by memorizing lines.

I wrote a long comment and resent so that it didn't include a link, but it may have been marked as spam.

lol because of ding liren

I don’t think you’re asking the right question. The French is solid in a passive/static kind of way and your opponent did not lose out of the opening. The real question is why they would have 16 minutes remaining on move 17…

i don't play the french much but if i saw that my opponents plays the tarrasch then i would play it any day. No one is scared of the tarrasch since almost everything equalizes for black. I highly recommend trying the advance french with the milner barry gambit. I get so many easy wins and it is really uncomfortable for black to play.

Great Christian names. Poor etiquette from your opponent

In the French defense, I think black has always a lot of different options that are viable : if you take as example the Tarrash variation, black can go for Nf6, c5, Nc6, dxe4, Be7 ... and it's the same in most of variations.

The possibility of entering exchange french makes the french unplayable

I had a phase where I loved the the French because people didn’t know how to react to it but I realise now that the French defence is so cramped and its better to play the Sicilian because it has the same ideas for challenging d5 but opening up the queenside more before e6,d5 ideas and similarly carokann over Scandinavian because gambiting and pushing d5 early is kind of dubious.

I like playing the french im around 1900 and i feel like white players at my lever when they face the french they feel like they always have to attack and "prove" their position which makes them either sac pawns and pieces incorrectly or spend a lot of time searching for moves that aren't there. I mean don't get me wrong lots of time they sac all their pieces and mate me but its rarer especially in rapid time controls. Btw nc6 before c5 is insane to me like i know its probably fine but still

I recently switched to other options but I played French a lot with good success because I like playing strategically and it covers up some of my tactical weaknesses. And it works very well against very young talented players in OTB tournaments who struggle a lot more in closed positions.

The guy played a second-rate sideline of the Tarrasch and lost in the middlegame, yet somehow this makes an entire opening complex bad in your eyes? Is this some kind of joke?

surprisingly unbreakable on any elo (recently played in the world championship), gives aggressive options for black, gives positional options with queens on the board, allows to exchange pieces in some lines and go for positional endgame grinding - just like any other 'serious' opening for black

clean up the mouse and it will work fine, buy another otherwise

French is solid, reasonably easy idea, pour pressure on the white pawn structure. A lot of games i end up a pawn up as black due to an error by white. I am only 1500 elo but yeah i like it. White messes up more than black and im sure at higher elos there is other stuff i dont understand.

The French is a rich strategic opening and offers a lot of variety within each lines so you can easily switch up lines if you fear preparation. Plus it's a deceptively good opening, played by many World Champions on and off (see last WCC). Additionally white players find it annoying!

I play the french because originally it pushed me to play positions i used to be bad at and it seems to annoy people

A 2000 rated Player tought me chess and he always plays french by now i have Played aproxamitly 500 otb games against him and we play french back to back now i am 1800 fide and its the only opening i can poay well

I usually play the alekhine defence and there's a line that often transposes into the steinitz french, i like the solid structure and future plans of the opening. As white i like to play the traditional colle system so I'm used to setups with a "bad" bishop for a time.

I play the French Sicilian aka the French but better, and I too question why play the pure French. Strategically it's the same with a C4 break, but you're not nearly as susceptible to a kingside onslaught from White. With the Taimanov it becomes much more difficult for white to get a strong pawn on E5 to start an attack, and if they do it's often an improvement from blacks perspective over the mainline French.

I play the french because it is more agressive than the carro and I like the positions

I used to play the French, but switched to the Caro-Kann because (1) I like having a functional light-squared bishop, and (2) every time White plays the Exchange Variation, I die a little more on the inside. If I know that my opponent won't play the Exchange, I don't mind having the French as a backup. The Rubinstein Variation is pretty solid.

Ironically, your favorite, the Caro-Kann, I almost never lose to- find it extremely easy for white. Find the French a lot tougher, think it all is just personal preference!

Not a French player, but a 1. E4 player. A well prepared French player (which most aren't) will get a good position that they know a lot more about than their opponent. Lots of imbalance and can be sharp.

8:20 after 16... Rd8 you had 17. Bg5 and could take a rook. But you missed it :(

Ding Liren played it in the world championship and won - is that not motivation enough?

I think the best explanation for playing the French came from Fabi during his analysis of Game 1 of the WCC on his C Squared podcast- if you're armed with world-class preparation, you can fight and have interesting imbalances. For all of us without world-class preparation, I'm inclined to agree with you. I'm a Sicilian player with black, so I've dabbled in some Alapin lines that can transpose to the advance French in quick games. I would get interesting, complicated, and sharp positions right up until I miss some tactical maneuver and get blown off the board.

French is very solid🤷🏻‍♂️

bruh why do you trade rook?? I thought u have 2000 Elo

First we make fun of an opening after move 1 and 7 moves later we are worse against the not so good 3... Nc6 variation. 😂 French is no worse than for example Caro-Kan even though the Bc8 sometimes can get bad. The idea is to quickly attack whites center with pwans and knights and solve the bishop later on. Caro-Kan is imho more boring and the pawn on c6 is not optimal when you often anyway must play c5 and first then the knight can go to c6. Both openings is ok and the game is normally not won in the opening. The French has occured in the two last WCM's, Caro-Kan not I think? Openings come and go.

I play the french because sometimes my Alekhine transposes into the Steinitz French:D

I play the French because it's like the Caro-Kann except up a tempo and you get to keep the bishop pair. Also because I enjoy closed positions, and the Exchange French is worse for white than the Exchange Caro or Open Sicilian, etc.

Thank you Stjepan. Even 4 years later I've learned to play this opening from your videos mostly and it's been good for me :)

I love playing Dutch, caro khan and french as those openings are pretty unexpected against any beginner player.

I haven't watched to the end yet but was there 17. Bg5 with a skewer?

i love the french because both sides often get what they want and the game is unbalanced and fun

I scored about 30% OTB with the caro and have recently changed to the French. I score 70% online in around 50 or so games and have won both my OTB French games recently

Majority of people at my level don't know how to play against the French. If they go for the advance variation they're toast.

Really tense but perfectly executed for your (quite high) level!

I play the French, Scandinavian, and the Dragon Sicilian. I used to play the Pirc but never really liked it. Why do I play the French? Because I got problems. Now you know I got problems, and you might have a problem over this chessboard because I don’t play it cupcake-style

I play the french because i despise the caro kann and I like bullying my opponents.

The reason that I play the French Defense is simple: No matter what my opponent plays on the first move, I always respond with Black 1. ... e7-e6! since I play in a team.