Hi there.
In this election, I'm going to give you a little tour of the so-called front the fence.
So if you play E4 and they play ESX, this is the French defense.
It's a very well known opening.
Certain world champions favored it over others.
Bobby Fischer hardly ever played it, but Seagram chosen was a big fan.
So it was Mikhail Botnick.
So you get that with certain things.
They match certain personalities and styles of player more than others.
So the French defense is more close, positional in general than, say, the Sicilian defense, which
is more tactical now when you first start in chess.
I'm not sure I would recommend the French defense to you as long as you can understand how to handle
the basic traps based on F7, there's no need to use the French defense as a kind of cushion opening
to stop you being attacked on F7.
Really, you should use the French defense if you understand its key ideas and don't mind potentially
long positional games.
And for me, if you're, you know, in my opinion as a newcomer, you should be boosting your tactical.
Kind of mental systems, how you think about tactics and to do that, I would actually recommend more
opening openings like this to sit on the fence, which will get to later.
But let's say you did want to play the French defense, or at least from the white side.
What do you do against that?
Well, there's various options.
One is to actually play the King's Indian attack system, the fray.
So if they play this, you play this and then you play this and then you kind of think hattar your bishop
and you have a decent playable position here to work with.
So that's one approach which will bypass a lot of your opponents.
French defense, very.
If you want more exciting.
Why is a gambit called the Ratti gambit named after Richard Retting?
So you actually offer the pawn here?
And this is quite interesting, to say the least, that has even been used that the vast time controls
of chess called correspondance chess.
And I mean, you know, where it could last months and years games with with some success, sometimes
so nicely free.
So they did try and cling onto the pawn of the defraying.
This is a key move, this position.
You have actually good compensation for the sacrifice pawn.
You have good compensation nicknaming even to console Queen Side later.
So with good attacking prospects and compensation for the pawn.
So that's very, very interesting.
If you want to kind of sideline to be aware of the rati game, it is a fantastic sideline.
So I once saw that Muswell Hill match and started playing it myself for a while, doing research around
it and finding some games.
So the Rhatigan is a sideline.
Very interesting.
But the main line, the so-called mainlined the most popular, very popular trodden path is the playing
of the Essex DeFore of the defense.
The two main branches, believe it or not, you play nicely free or 92 usually now nicely free does
actually invite Bishop before.
And this goes into the so-called Winoker variation.
93 was a favorite of Bobby Fischer, an American world chess champion.
So Bishop, before I mean, the whole night, Seefried rather inviting bishop before Fischer never played
the French defense.
He played against that.
And with White, he'll play E5, generally speaking, E5 And you might wonder what it was actually going
on here.
Why would both sides indulge in this?
Well, let's see.
Just to take this step or two further black usually play C5 and White usually encourages the bishop
to do something like take on C usually.
And we have this position where both sides have their own kind of pros and cons of the position or imbalances.
So the favorable imbalances from White's perspective, is that White has the bishop power, in particular
the dance queen bishop can do a lot of damage, potentially Black hasn't got a dance club counterpart.
So quite often if you study the games of Bobby Fisher in particular, he's a major exponent of the French
defense whenever and often he's later sacrificing pawns on a dance class and creating amazing opportunities
not just for the dance choir, but sometimes this peafowl is good, especially if the opponents castle
queen side.
The downside, or rather the upside for the opponents is that if the opponents can survive the dance
the before they are structurally better and often in games, it's better for black whites punchline.
I mean, it's been doubled tap.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
Chess is all about trade offs.
Sometimes with double pawns you get other advantages.
Certainly the dance going with our counterpart is one advantage to speak of and the adjacent before.
So, you know, that could be useful for attacks sometimes.
So there's pros and cons of this position.
For both sides.
So why would players indulge in creating imbalances for themselves rather than, say, playing in a
boring way?
Well, the most boring way.
And it's just navigate down for a moment and we'll come back to it later is 865.
This is kind of robbing the game of imbalances.
And actually, one of my fellow club players, John Piggott, said he gave up the French defense because
people were playing this.
It makes it very difficult for either side, in fact, to win, although generally.
Yeah, a lot of games end in draws as a result of this, because if you look at the pawn structure,
it's symmetrical pawn structure and there's a kind of lack of imbalances.
There's a lack of favorable advantages, pros and cons.
Both sides are kind of fighting for the same thing.
And often, if you're up against the stronger opponents, yeah, you might actually not want to make
the game interesting if you want to make the game boring.
And I've had this fight against me in clubhouses.
I've struggled to try and win.
Sometimes I remember one occasion, I just I just kind of had to accept the draw as black.
So, yeah, it is off-putting if you are playing the French defense, especially in your early development
as a chess player, I have to warn you now that opponents could simply play this dreaded exchange variation.
So you would have to know how to play this.
Sometimes you can make it exciting.
Sure, there are plans for making exciting idea that you need further research and to look at some games.
And there's whole books on the French defense.
There's actually a landmark book by John Watson on the French defense.
I'd urge you to check out if he did want to take up the French defense and you feel that you're really
more professional if you're interested in chess.
Oppositional.
Yeah.
Than this opening.
But let's look at for the white side again, OK?
Forget the exchange version for the moment.
So instead of Knight Sifry, what makes a big difference is actually Ninety-two, because you're note
here, or rather I'm going to notice Bisher before you can kick the bishop with Seefried.
There's no pin on the knight and this reflects a waste of time.
Even worse would be going back here because I'm white, some even more space in the center and I have
a delightful position.
I can do all sorts and has a nice space advantage.
Plans to waste a lot of time there.
So the saturation kind of rules out.
Bishop, before it's kind of you could call it inappropriate and effective.
For me, those are synonyms on the chessboard.
Being appropriate is kind of being effective.
And the stronger you are, the more appropriate you play in any given pool structure and situation,
taking into account the details of positions, usually by heads.
It is a little bit more detail.
Detail has gone to detour, not Sifry.
It's with this detail which which changes what really black plays.
This little detail is major and it's called the transformation of the segments.
Haroche So Ciguatera, by the way, it has a lot of interesting things that were complete newcomers
to the game to be aware of.
He's the one that kind of coined phrases for his students, you know, nights before bishops when you
have a look at his games, actually, they're rather advanced and dynamic.
But he did have a kind of prescriptive kind of style sometimes.
So anyway, this is the end of the trash ciguatera, the transformation so principly avoids that pain.
If C5, we can get an exciting game after eatings, especially if Black takes with the poor black and
also take with the queen.
There are tradeoffs being made here.
If black takes with a queen, usually they don't want an isolated Queen's pawn.
They want to soak up Winesap pressure and have a nice pawn structure throughout the game without the
concern of the so-called isolated Queen's pawn.
So if you played, it takes and they play each takes.
This is a kind of speciality of one of Britain's top super grandmasters, Michael Adams, this transformation.
So there's a lot of steam games.
If you wanted to check out British Grand Master Michael Adams, he's won so many games in this version.
The imbalance is here.
The pros for white is the ice queen spawn.
Sometimes you can usefully blockaded the pros for black, the queen's pawn.
Sometimes it can be used to have useful hooks.
The adjacent fouls are active, sometimes on rookie.
Once something, too, is an issue.
You can picture this.
There were games with F2 being an issue, sometimes direct attacks from like.
So it's all about in fact it becomes a quite a lot about handling the ice queen spawn.
It's a double edged sword.
That's why you need to kind of understand the fundamental pawn structures as well.
Certain pawn structures like isolated Queen's pawn crop up from a variety of different openings.
So to know how to play for and against, I say Queen Pawns is a fantastic skill which will save you
countless hours and help you really understand each other much deeper level than just trying to memorize
specific opening variations.
But black, you know, can play a little bit more kind of solid and doesn't have to go in with that
can play.
This queen takes the five line and yeah, that is a line to research in its own right.
And it's got many interesting variations.
So basically, though, we're saying that this is like the main line, actually, you know, ninety
free is the winner.
There's the trash.
But there's also another option here, which is very important to consider.
If we look above, that is the advanced version, this is Paul 95 and this actually gives you a distinct
angle to actually learn about chess from a particular pawn structure angle.
Lots of pawn chains.
There's two locked in pawn chains.
This actually reflects what's known as the five pawn chain.
So it confirms why the extra space advantage by Black has so-called undermining strategies to try and
undermine the pawn chain with, for example, C five is the classic move and then 96.
Now, if you're playing this is white, there's also a very naughty trap to be aware of here.
If you play nice, have free.
And they just started playing in front of the fence and they play queen bee sex.
It looks as though there's annoying pressure on D4.
And if you play Bishop, differe looks as though on a sec, have you just blundered a sense of pawn.
So they play takes.
Have you just become the center pawn.
So it's not actually they can't really take her.
I wonder if you can spot why this is a this is a very important trap to be aware of.
If you're playing the advanced version, you might play for this trap.
In fact, it's naughty.
It could win you games, though.
But remember, naughty trap sometimes inhibit your your future development.
There's always trade offs.
There's a lot that you've got to consider.
But this is a naughty trap they shouldn't be taking here because you take, they take.
And guess what?
They haven't put themselves beyond the feet, have they?
If you don't put yourself beyond the fact in the opening, things backfire.
This is a very bad backfire.
The Kings on AIDS, Bishop B five.
Check and look at the effects on the possession.
You're actually not just checking your opponent's king.
You're doing two things, but one move overwhelming the opponent.
It's only a turn based game.
They have to react to the check and then you just scoop up their queen.
So that's a very well known trap.
So if there's one their queen for bishop, in fact, let's improve on that.
Let's get the best version of events.
What's even stronger than Queen 64?
Always try for the very best move.
In fact, there is also a famous quotation, when you say a good move, look for an even better one.
There's an even better one.
You can actually play the check first.
Hold that excitement in for a moment and then take the queen even better version of events.
You want the best possible version of events.
So that's a well known trap.
So usually they won't be doing that.
You know, maybe they they've actually done some homework on this and they play something else.
There's a high class waiting move over, high class waiting move here, which is basically seven next
hour, another kind of former world chess champion.
And games can be very, very interesting from here.
In fact, you can treat this as a gambit situation.
You can actually Castle, he might think, oh, this is crazy social.
You mean give up the pawn deliberately now without any backfire?
That's right.
This position after 93, you're trading off some pawns in the center for some tempo gains, the Black
Kings and the center for a while.
Check out some steam games from this position to get an idea of plans that you can proceed with.
So this is good for testing.
When you have all the pieces out, can you do some tactical damage to the opponent?
So Gometz, I fully recommend to newcomers to the game.
You want to prioritize being strong in the middle game and in particular being strong tactically.
When you play more open possessions and gambits like this, you're feeling the power of the pieces,
hand-to-hand combat before trench warfare.
If this is both scenarios, I do want to bring words together.
But this is more direct combat, which when you first start chess and, you know, gambits are really
good for feeling the power, the pieces, feeling the tactical possibilities.
So this is a well known gambit, which you might want to try as well.
So this whole advanced version is actually rather exciting as it.
So you've got very, very exciting possibilities here.
So just to give you a brief overview again.
Oh, last but not least, OK, we mentioned the exchange rate earlier.
If you want to be super boring and just have a kind of, you know, maybe positions like this and then,
you know, it's dull, it's dull.
But, you know, that's why they play symmetrical power structures in world championships.
It's very, very popular thing to bore everyone to death.
They don't want to lose, especially with the black pieces.
So often you get symmetrical pull structures in world championships.
But Magnus Carlsen has been spicing things up with the Sicilian defense recently.
So somewhat suspicious.
But anyway, that's an the side.
There's also this system of Bishop Differe as the, you know, Bishop defraying.
At Move Free here is interesting, I move free, and if they take, you can actually drop the bishop
that's Africanness has its own peculiarities.
So this is a real sideline to investigate.
It's not one of the main lines.
It's a sideline to investigate.
And you often develop the night onto Itoh and this kind of thing.
If you don't mind playing an end game out.
Well, kind of queens.
Off you go.
Persistent pressure here.
It takes the opponent our book, but it's not my cup of tea.
Personally, my recommendations for you in a nutshell include my top recommendations.
The Rhatigan had a blast with that.
I've had a blast of kings into the tank, you know, different and that than thinking to the bishop
later
the winner.
So Difford the free invite the pen and get this in balance and learn how to play essentially with the
bishop without accountable.
It's wonderful if you can experience sacrificing pawns and not squares or winning on the dark squares
later.
This is what the five -- chain is about.
Again, fundamentals of -- try to come into this entire discussion.
The French defense is very much about pawns and their structure in various forms.
So here is an E5 -- chain.
We've also noticed that if we played the trash, we get an isolated Queen's -- situation potentially
emerging in the terrorist operation.
If they play like this again, pros and cons understanding different -- structures will enrich your
experience of chess pawns of the soul of chess as well as all outside.
So the task is very interesting and the advanced version is very interesting for the post.
You can get out of that sometimes an aggressive gambit.
If you want to bore yourself and your opponent, 865, you might get a small edge.
Sometimes there are ways of getting sometimes an annoying edge.
The more research you do, the more likely that's going to happen.
And there's this obscure Paul George, you like my good friend Paul George, you, he likes to bore
to death and me and my other friends, sometimes with his obscure, dull openings that I just I'm just
kidding.
But if you want to play this, this is a sideline, OK?
But for me, you know, I like the game.
It's like the tactical passion of the game.
So.
Yeah.
There's options here to explore.
There's something very, very exciting.
Sorry, sorry, we haven't talked about the classical version.
Let's go back DeFore D5.
What if after free they didn't pay, they don't have to pay you.
In fact, they can encourage you to close the centre up with access to the classical version.
I have a fantastic proposal for you.
We're going to run the gamut.
Bishop G5 and don't.
This has been tested at the top echelons of of amazing super engine chess.
Stronger than any super grandmasters of this on that show is actually remarkably a sound idea.
So you kick the mike back and you play.
This is the alkene shattered combat.
Fantastic stuff.
Truly, this is in the classical variation, so the classical version, if they take this and this happens,
you play nice actually with tempo and research some STEM games from here.
That's a very, very exciting stuff based on the dynamics of the position.
When I say the dynamics, the active rook, the potential for constant coincide later and I hope again
for later very, very exciting possibilities can arise in these kind of scenarios.
Very exciting.
So, yes, I don't have to if you play 93, be prepared also for this.
Don't have sex, the classical variation.
So I'd recommend as top choice Bishop G5 there is also a Stalinist regime of E5 and you have to kind
of know what you're doing.
Sometimes you need to be able to play a move like this to support the -- chain and you have to know
what you're doing to maintain the -- chain.
There are perks to be had.
You got a space advantage.
There are ups and downs for both sides.
OK, now this lecture, believe me, you can get whole books on specific variations of the French defense.
Chess is a gigantic game.
I'm just giving you in this lecture a really brief overview of the French defense.
Look out for the imbalances and I would urge you to see what imbalances excite you.
Chess is so vast they almost cannot align to your personality and interests.
It's such a vast game.
It's an expression of art in a way that, in fact, even your choice of playing the French defense might
reflect some Petrosian traits in you.
Petrosian hated losing and he played the French defense because it's actually sometimes really difficult
to beat, especially the way Petrosian played it.
It often calls the queen side his king was snug as a bug.
And yeah, look at some games of Petrosian for failing the French defense.
That's the world champion.
That and McRobert bottleneck, both major French defense exponents more than grandmasters.
Ruzena Cobian who have met.
He's a major French defense expert, a US grandmaster.
So it's still alive and kicking at the top levels.
It's generally regarded as a little bit passive.
But from the complete newcomers perspective to chess, I don't recommend it in general, especially
if you're if you're wanting to improve your tactical abilities.
Even think of having chosen WAS in his early career, was very much more aggressive and tactical in
some of the stuff he played.
But yeah, I wouldn't recommend it.
I'm just giving an awareness of it.
It's essential in chess lives that in other lectures have the awareness first, that's non-controversial,
the awareness of something.
See what it can do for you maybe is your cup of tea.
I just know I had one season.
I was playing the French defense.
I had a miserable season.
I switched the Sicilian defense the the next season and I had much better results because Paul George,
you actually noticed this, that he thought, why am I playing French?
Defense doesn't affect my style.
It fits Paul George's style affects my fits.
Alekseyev Lonza style much more, my good friend.
And it's a contest.
You know, you need to find what works for you in openings, what ones fits your personality and style.
So anyway, but you definitely need an awareness of all the key variations.
And if you're playing on the white side, of course, you need to know those ones where the imbalances
really match your interests and development needs.
In chess, I'd say early development needs in chess to maximize your tactical understanding, your visualization,
your calculation skills, your evaluation skills.
So you're calculating a few moves ahead.
You also need to carefully evaluate who's actually doing better and not just on material.
You know, there's multiple ways of evaluating positions, you know, king safety, pawn structure,
and they're also trading off against each other.
Chess is a very complicated game.
But anyway, the French defense in a nutshell.
And so much.