French defence - Easy draw for black?

I decided that I was fed up with playing e5 as a response to e4, and when I played c5, the positions generated were getting very complicated and I decided to find a simple, more drawish defence. So I had a look at the french defence I looked over some of the lines and decided that I liked the Winawer.

So I played a game against my Rybka 4 without a handicap with the intention of seeing how long it would take till I was hopelessly lost.

The game was 4 minutes a side which may be part of the reason why the result was not a Rybka win.

Are you sure that was Rybka 4? with a 3000++ rating?? any old beggar can see white has a very comftareble edge in that game and computers are merciless once they open your king... Furthermore if the French was sooo good you would see it played a whole lot more at top levels where at the moment its more of a suprise weapon than a main one. If you are looking for a different line for white look up the Tarrasch. A number of strong grandmasters have been keeping an eye on it and have found very dangerous lines that highly favor white. In any case you have to keep in mind that any given opening is "theoretically" a draw so don't be so shocked to see that black can defend with proper play!

Yeah, you can't say that a particular opening draws at non-Master level, really.

The French is sooo good for black.  It's just not particularly in favor at the moment.  It was used extensively by Botvinnik and Petrosian, to mention two of my favorite players.  But I have to agree, at my level no opening is drawish, and the Winawer is cut-throat.

According to my quick unscientific analysis you didn't make a single move outside the top 1-2-3 engine choices. Indeed, using stockfish, it seemed to me Rybka made slightly worse moves than you. (Among other things, Stockfish thought Rybka's bishop sac was clearly second best to Qh4... and Stockfish thought bringing the Q to g4 in the first place wasn't so great either.) The draw result against an engine isn't so surprising when you play engine quality chess yourself. So, it's not the French defense which is so good, it's you. Frankly, your performance strains credulity.

Seems like simple book moves being made by you, Rybka, under time pressure may not have analysed the positions correctly and have gone with slightly inferior yet attacking lines, I play the French defence as a regular response to 1.e4 as black and would play almost exactly the same moves as you throughout the entire game.

Any sensible opening is in theory a draw, even openings like the Latvian gambit, have bee shown through computers to lead to draws with best play by both sides, so when you play best moves throughout the game, you are going to get a draw. 

Having said that, I feel that the French defence is a stable defence that is very worth playing, black generally gets some good counter-attacking chances on the queenside, whilst whites attack will be on the kingside, white's attack is usually manageable as long as you avoid certain winning bishop or double bishop sacrifices.

Quite brief computer analysis of Stockfish's Qh4 idea seems to show that it would lead to a draw by repetition in around 20 moves.

I ran your game through my Rybka and for move 27, mine would have moved h5 to avoid the three fold repetion.   Not sure how you got yours to repeat and draw.

if his rating is only 1300 and he played better then a 3000, im having suspicions about him making this game up. just saying...

It is all book moves from him until the bishop sacrifice which it seems he didn't know, from then on all he does is go through the exchange, trade some pawns, get the queens off in a position where his king was exposed, defend a pawn, then harass Rybka's knight and let it play out a weird draw. I can only assume that Rybka's French defence book is fairly short and so he was playing more perfect moves than Rybka.

Can't really understand why it played the draw though, perhaps it considered the position slightly worse for it.

The 365 chess masters database shows 7 ... 0-0 as the most popular move. with 556 plays. 

7 ... Qc7 (next highest) has 230 plays.

7 ... 0-0 has 35.3% White wins 45.5% draws and 19.2% Black wins = 19.2+22.75 = 41.95% Black score

7 ... Qc7 has 43.5% white wins, 29.6% draws and 27% Black wins = 41.8% Black score

Showing that not only do people in their right mind play it, it brings better results than the next most popular choice.

I personally play this line and would be happy to take you on in a CC game from 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+6. bxc3 Ne7 7. Qg4 O-O

i think you should pariticpate in computer engine tournaments and play against the latest rybka fritz shredder, forget abt chessmaster its not ur level, wow man, and i thought rybka was the best :D

I agree. It's clear the guy is making up the game.  For such a novice to play exactly the same move as Rybka's top 3 moves is next to impossible.

On the other hand, if you play Rybka with full strength on a classical time control, it will whip your ass in no time.

Never believe a hack ! 

Don't think he said anything about it being deep rybka 4, just rybka 4. 

I can see why someone would play the bishop sacrifice due to it avoiding the pawn fork, and weakening the black king's defences. However my Rybka 4 rates this as the 3rd best move.

...huh?

 Is this what they teach in school these days? How does a 15 Year-old pick up this crap?

Does Napoleon ring any bells ?

Actually, my french book has the entire repertoire based on 7...0-0! Black basically tries to defend on the kingside, particularly looking at moves like ...f5, when white often has to give up his e5 pawn to keep lines open. Black then has the f file, possibilites to get active in the center, and the doubled pawns to pressure. It's not as easy as it would seem for white to attack, though black has to be quite careful early on. So this statement is actually very controversial. Sure it allows some attack, but chess is not a one sided game, and that's no reason to immediately give up this possibility!

By the way, great game! Your ideas after ...f5 were completely correct, as it's exactly the line theory considers best for black (it doesn't think Nf3 and Bd3 is best, better to play Bd3 first), which seems to give him the advantage in all lines, though he's not winning.

Wow !!  I have been playing both sides of the winawer french for decades myself so let me just say ....

I have always personally preferred the poisoned pawn lines when playing black and have never once played 7.... 0-0  in a serious game . However, as white I have often struggled and even failed against 7.... 0-0 when played by strong players so its certainly a reasonable option for black. I agree with the opinion that the poisoned pawn lines are more in the "spirit" of the winawer but at the same time agree that 7... 0-0 is a playable option for black.