How to Beat the French Defence: The Essential Guide to the Tarrasch

A book on the Tarrasch in the French defense

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Moskalenko is a leading French expert and it shows throughout; there's hardly a variation in the book to which he hasn't either contributed something or in which he hasn't noticed some still-unfashionable line that some strong analysts have revived. In fact, the book serves as a tribute to the French Defence itself. The French has another mission entirely: That is an almost impossible task, but they do a yeoman's job of it. As with other Chess Explained books, the featured games are all contemporary, that is, played in and thereafter, with one exception a game by Eingorn himself in Likewise, the theory in the notes derives from recent contests, which to some extent allows them to bypass older lines that are at least temporarily out of favour.

Inevitably, the material is winnowed down, for example, the content begins with 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 , and not 1 e4 e6 , which is understandable; the reader will have to research things like the King's Indian Attack and Moskalenko's 2 Nf3 d5 3 Nc3 variation mentioned above. Nevertheless, the authors do a good job of hitting not only high points, but the kind of supporting lines that Moskalenko doesn't cover.

For example, the Winawer coverage is exceptionally good, and we get games with 4 exd5 and 4 Nge2 , with notes on 4 Qg4 , 4 Bd3 , 4 Qd3 , 4 Bd2 , and 4 a3 , the latter two of particular importance.

At move 5, after 4 e5 c5 , the coverage is less impressive regarding White's 'minor' but important moves. The popular 5 Bd2 and dynamic 5 dxc5 in particular deserve more than a few unexplained moves. But if they'd covered everything, you would end up with little more than a skeleton and not much that 'explains' the French. They include Winawers with 7 Qg4 Kf8!? The less common but important Ba5 has a terribly instructive game as an exemplar.

We already saw in his Creative Chess Opening Preparation that Eingorn loves slightly out-of-the-way French Tarrasch lines such as 3 Nd2 h6 and 3 Nd2 a6 both in my Dangerous Weapons book , which the authors also devote more than the expected space to.

Be7 is given its due, while some long old main lines stemming from Nf6 are too dense and the authors simply have to give them relatively superficial treatment. The Advance Variation 3 e5 receives only 14 pages note that pages in the 'Chess Explained' series contain more material than the average book of their dimension. That really is a problem, as the authors dismiss all options on moves 3 and 4 other than Qb6 are given attention rather than those with Traditional main lines such as The problem is that the French Defence is a much broader and theoretically more complex opening than some others in the Chess Explained series, so the cuts need be more Draconian.

Everyman had the same problem with its own Starting Out: I should mention Bogdanov, the lesser-known co-author.

He is not only the long-time second for Eingorn, but a trainer of Moskalenko and Drozdovsky, names very familiar to French Defence enthusiasts, and Savchenko, who plays the French relatively often. That more than qualifies him as a French Defence expert. One of the main reasons to recommend this book is that the authors clearly know their subject and, as you would expect from Eingorn, have an eye for the slightly unusual moves that might improve upon the main games and keep the variations alive for both sides.

They also have a healthy respect for White's strengths in the French, and show them in detail. Neil McDonald is not only a leading French Defence expert, he is also one of the premier writers about it. In How to Play Against 1 e4 , he recommends an anti-1 e4 repertoire with the French. First, a relevant digression. In , McDonald wrote Starting Out: I found this a very brave book for recommending that White go into nearly every Open Sicilian variation that is, with 2 Nf3 and 3 d4.

No one does this in a repertoire book, much less given a couple hundred pages to cover all of 1 e4! Every author would tell you that the Open Sicilian variations are too complex and space-consuming etc. Anyway, versus the French the Starting Out: Nf6 4 e5 Nfd7 5 Bd3 c5 6 c3 Nc6 and via Only versus the Guimard, he does recommend the Tzermiadianos' solution above, but without considering So, to return to the book at hand, i.

For example, versus the Advance Variation, he gives the little-investigated option Bd7-b5, in both cases to swap his bad bishop for White's good one. Bc6, called 'the Fort Knox'. One of the other reasons that I'm talking about How to Play Against 1 e4 , is to bring you attention to McDonald's Chesspublishing column on the French Defence, which is, bar none, the best source on completely up-to-date and well annotated information on the French Defence. Theoreticians, almost all of them GMs, take the latest month's batch of games and annotate what they see as the most interesting ones.

It's definitely worth exploring. I have a column on the site. ChessPublishing can be the best way to find out how a line is evolving.

McDonald's repertoire includes the line: Be7 is a later discovery that has gotten a better and better reputation. Today, most attention is being concentrated upon the line 9. This move was played in Sadvakasov-Hernandez Guerrero, Merida in December of last year, and thus was unavailable to McDonald for the book his main game goes 12 dxc5?! Bg1 cxd4 and leading to equality. But on ChessPublishing post-book , he gives the only serious analysis that I've seen of this game, criticizing Hernandez Guerrero's Bb7 and preferring I still like White by a bit, but that's another matter.

As the game went, Black was slightly worse, but got a good game after White tried for too much. Let me move on to brief comments on some other books. In column 91 I talked about Christoph Wisnewski's Play A complete chess opening repertoire for Black. That was in the context of his Chigorin recommendation 1 d4 d5 2 c4 Nc6. He also wants Black to play 1 e4 Nc6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 e6 , which is the same as the French line 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 Nc6. This is a line that I suggest and analyse in my own Dangerous Weapons: Bb4 , but Wisnewski prefers the remarkable Wisnewski also chooses Nge7 after 4 e5 , whereas I promoted Again, we see how wide open the ideas are in the French, far more than anyone imagined 15 or even 5 years ago.

I should point out that two works on the French Defence have appeared on DVD over the last few years. He suggests 3 Nc3 because it is "probably the best move", a sentiment with which I agree. In fact, as a 1 e4 player, I tried out 3 e5 , but then permanently switched to 3 Nc3. On Disk 1, Kasimdzhanov begins with a general Introduction to the French, and then, as on each disc, his first segment deals with the general layout of material on that disc.

The other segments are lectures centered around complete games. This is always a tradeoff for either the book author or the commentator. Complete games are very helpful in establishing a continuity of ideas and bringing an entertaining flow to the presentation; on the other hand, using them can seriously cut into the amount of theoretical material, including both specific moves and themes that are particular to an opening. For this series, which doesn't emphasize pure theory, the decision to go with complete games seems a good one.

As a whole, I find Kasimdzhanov's speaking style easy to listen to, although sometimes the frequency of 'uhs' gets a little out of hand. In Disk 1, Kasimdzhanov discusses the Winawer, choosing the 7 Qg4 main line as his recommendation. It's too bad that he dismisses some lines for Black as simply bad without analysis.

Moskalenko devotes a whole chapter to this line, used by the older players Petrosian, Bronstein, Portisch, and Korchnoi; but also in contemporary play by Ivanchuk who defeated Kasparov with it, a rare loss with White by the World Champion , Vaganian, Chernin, Psakhis, Gulko, and by Moskalenko himself, who cites 10 of his own contests. As it happens, Bf8 has an excellent record. Kasimdzhanov also doesn't mention 3 Nc3 Nc6 a moderately popular move right now, and Wisnewski's main line. Qc7 only in one out-of-date line, albeit a very instructive one 7 Bd2 Qa4 see Moskalenko above , Kasimdzhanov suggests 8 Qb1 c4 9 h4 without looking at the good alternative Nbc6 10 h5 , Black has to play Bd7 11 h6 '?!

Nxh6 , Black ends up with the better chances. He also says that 'Black's idea is Rc8', when generally the lines with Naturally, there can't be enough room for everything or anything near the theory necessary to form a complete repertoire for White. But the real positive of this video is its instructive value, as emphasised below.

On the second disk, Kasimdzhanov covers the Classical Variation and chooses 4 e5 rather than 4 Bg5 , i. Nf3 Nc6 , and now the main line 7. Be3 rather than 7 Nce2, although he gives an old example with this move: Sultan Khan - Tartakower, ! Then he provides one game apiece with Qb6 , two with the currently popular again! As most French and 1 e4 players know, the theory on these lines is exploding, so your goal shouldn't be to learn concrete theory as much as to absorb classic examples and typical structures and piece placement, along with overarching themes.

How to Beat the French Defense: The essential guide to the Tarrasch by Andreas Tzermiadianos

Disk 3 handles 1. Nc3 dxe4 and transpositions coming from 3. Nxe4 Be7 and Now he gives one of his own games, Kasimdzhanov-Arkell, Vlissingen , to illustrate the Fort Knox 4. Nf3 Bc6 , and the rest of the tape is devoted to Here, rather than present a single repertoire for White, as he mainly does on the other disks, Kasimdzhanov gives no less than 4 games with 7 Bg5 and 5 with 7. Kasimdzhznov shows a win of his over Korchnoi in a beautiful game with 7 Bg5.

He ends that lecture with a short comment to the effect of being proud of the game. But I found more in his text annotations to the game hidden in the database , where he adds: A second later I heard, not for the first time in my life, the ominous words "But still he can't play chess". And for all I know, he might be right. The main point is that Kasimdzhanov picks wonderful and sometimes inspiring examples from top-level play; quite a few of them are older that is, early s! The analysis itself is of course not entirely current, and quite a few lines aren't covered.

If you're not sure about whether to pick up this DVD set, you should probably decide based upon of how you like to absorb chess material. Some people take in information better when it's in a visual format; they may also find this kind of learning more pleasurable than reading. In this video, Ziegler presents a full set of variations for Black to use. In most places, his analysis is more specific and detailed than Kasimdzhanov's, although the main idea is still to show Black's typical ideas in the repertoire via illustrative games, sometimes Ziegler's own.

Since I won't be going into his work in detail, I will list the contents at the top level, noting a few sidelines that he doesn't cover. Again, this is a DVD, not a book, so the presenter's idea is to concentrate upon the main lines. You can miss some fundamental ideas of the French when you don't learn the lesser alternatives, of course, but there's a tradeoff between that and the ease of presentation.

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Nf3 Bd7 , covering 6. Bg5 , and the main line 9. He also picks one of the main lines versus 5. Bxe7 the Alekhine-Chatard Attack with 6 h4 is also covered These include the French Exchange he says that it's 'good for a draw', which is rather downbeat; after all, nearly every chess opening for White is good for a draw; the question is how to maximize your winning chances ; the King's Indian Attack, and 2 Qe2.

Ziegler's delivery is smooth and his attitude is reflective many pauses. The text annotations to some games are in Swedish, which isn't much of a problem when the game is on the screen during the lectures, since he's commenting aloud in English. For such games in the accompanying database, however, an English-speaker will either have to ignore the notes or bravely take on the Swedish which really isn't so bad as long as there's enough chess vocabulary to relate to.

This is an extraordinarily long DVD, with almost 7 hours of lecturing. The pace is definitely slower than other ChessBase DVDs, with many pauses, but some viewers might like the empty spaces to better absorb the material. As a whole, you can't go wrong with this DVD if your desire is to look at the basic ideas of the French and pick up some variations to play, or even most of a repertoire.

The material isn't as dense as that in a book, of course, but for many people it will go down well in this video format. This series is justifiably famous, and the flagship of the Chess Stars line. Much as with Avrukh in the last review, or Tzermiadianos in this one, I find a lot of specific analysis to disagree with; but Khalifman is taking the whole theory of 1 e4 a step further and will inevitably be optimistic about some of the changes.

For the most part, his approach during this long According to Anand series has been to pick main lines and analyse them in depth. Nevertheless, he refuses to skip over the smallest of moves by Black, for example, after 3 Nc3 , we see Be7 , and I had the advantage of having Khalifman's books already when I wrote Dangerous Weapons , and was able to improve upon them with respect to my own featured lines; again, note the great value of using outside sources.

But Wisnewski seems to have done without the book, and I prefer Khalifman's analysis in at least two of the 3 Nc3 Nc6 lines. Not surprisingly, McDonald's treatment of 1. Be3 Be7 has more recent games at hand than Khalifman's, but it's McDonald's main line and he benefits from two extra years of crucial games. Bd7 , so perhaps the latter has found something useful for White, and at any rate it should be looked at further. Volume 7 is completely devoted to the Winawer Variation, with no less than pages of a specific repertoire!

Theory has developed continuously since, sometimes dramatically, so Eingorn's and Moskalenko's book above often have more sophisticated analysis of their specialties. I think Black can work around them, but only by playing other than Moskalenko suggests. In every line after Kf8 , Khalifman has effective moves not considered by Moskalenko! In these Winawer sections, then, Moskalenko would have done well to have broadened his research, and his brief Bibiliography reflects this. Having said that, I should re-emphasise that Moskalenko's is a fresh and insightful book that I absolutely would not do without.

Khalifman's books are original works which take a very concrete approach. Inexperienced players may find them too intimidating, at least if digested as a whole, and of course many amateurs won't have the time to play so many theoretical main lines. But for serious players who are willing to dig around, they have a huge amount of both conventional and creative material that will suggest a way to meet literally every serious option that French players have come up with thus far.

This series is a fundamental resource for every 1 e4 defence out there. It would be a good idea, however, to update Khalifman's analysis by using other sources, for example, current databases and some of the books recommended above. His most recent work is the 4-volume Mastering the Chess Openings. Over 2 million games.

Opening Books en Masse, Part 3

Read about 20 years of TWIC. A few are mentioned in the videos: Botvinnik, Petrosian, Korchnoi, all great names who can introduce us to the ideas of the French. Pelletier shows honesty as a teacher with a warning: Those themes are shown in the selection of games, which comes with this DVD. The second video made by Pelletier is quite important and instructive.

He begins to discuss the pawn structures, and the plans one will follow depending on the pawn structure. For example, Pelletier gives the definition of the bases of the pawn chain, and the reason to attack it, and he does it for each structure we find in the French.

The Week in Chess

Pelletier also describes the relationship between pawns and pieces, how the pawn chains hinder some pieces. The content of the DVD consists of 18 videos discussing the pawn structures, lines, and model games. Followed by eleven video clips of tests, in which Pelletier presents a position, and asks pertinent questions on how to continue, giving feedback in case one didn't understand something learned from the previous videos. The videos run for a total of 4 hours and 27 minutes. How do you gain the maximum from this DVD? This point is important and needs to be reiterated.

For example, I was listening to a training video clip, where Pelletier presented a position from the game Ljubojevic vs Gurevich M. In the video, Pelletier shows this position to demonstrate a typical sacrifice to open the centre, and says Gurevich made a living out of it.

The database found all the games Gurevich played with the French. The rest of the homework was to find a similar sac in the centre. By the way, Gurevich has played the French extensively, I found more than games with it! I wasn't able to find another game by Gurevich with similar central sac, but I found interesting manoeuvres Gurevich used to liberate the 'bad bishop' on c8.

Tzermiadianos A. How to Beat the French Defence: The essential guide to the Tarrasch

I also learned when Gurevich would consider safe it to castle queenside and many other ideas which could be important for my tournament games. Often I hear that books are better because they have commented games. Well this Chessbase DVD has of them! The selection given by Pelletier, if studied, will provide solid preparation not only for the opening but especially for the middlegame. As Pelletier pointed out in the beginning, if one plays correctly the first moves, but doesn't know how to continue, then it's useless.

Advance Variation

The con is quite easy to understand. If you are an adult like me, time is limited by work, family, etc. I tried to leave the DVD on the bedside table and slept near it, but there was no osmosis. Another good feature of the DVD is that Pelletier addressing pawn chains at a level everyone can understand very clearly.

So even a beginner who wants to pick up the French as an opening repertoire would be advised to pick this video series. Kudos to Pelletier for doing such a great teaching, in such a clear manner. Some people tend to be obsessed by the specific content: Will Pelletier treat that line? Or that other one? I didn't spend much time on minutiae, because I like the way Pelletier treated the opening. For example in the French advance variation, he did explain different lines but gave particular attention to explain when it was possible to attack the centre with an f7-f6 push as can be seen in the diagram below and when it wasn't advisable.

This explanation will stay with me in my games and help me navigate the opening, better than my faulty memory because I will know "why" I'm pushing the pawn in a certain position. Before closing this review, I'd like to share my experience with the French and give the reader, who is perhaps now on the French road, some games to see.

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