French Defence Question

If you like Caro-Kann, you should feel at home in the Fort Knox position, where the pawn structure is similar to a Caro-Kann main line.

nuclearturkey: I'd really recommend the book "The Flexible French" by GM V. Moskalenko, which discusses the Tarrasch as well as other variations in a very nice relaxed way

Volume 6 and covers the french defence, volume 6 the classical variation(and the rubinstein system and seldom played systems: Be7, Nc6 etc). Voume 7 covers the winawer variation. Anyone who wants to play the french defence against me, come on! NM, people rated 1900,2000 2400, just send a message and play.

Read Anands books and play against a good white player.

The french defence is too passive.

I never understood the charm of playing the french defense (shutting in the queens bishop) instead of caro-kann (which doesn't shut down the queens bishop).

I also agree. It's not that the french is "unsound" but positionally it is somewhat suspect, and I do not see the point in playing a defence that 1. is rather passive 2. you get a cramped position 3. Garry Kasparov and Anand do not like it>>>when there are a TON of other good openings VS 1.e4 that don't have any of those drawbacks----The Ruy, Scicilian, Petroff---the list goes on and on so It's not that the Frech is "bad" it's just that there is so much other cool stuff to be played out there that I cannot fathom why an amatuer player would choose the french as part of their repertoir and spend dead hours to study it.  

 Its interesting that of the 3 you picked only the sicilian does better than the french against 1 e4 while both of the others do worse. I have played the french with reasonable success for decades.

I dislike the french too but Anand saying that is unsound is maybe a joke. I know that white gets a good game more easily than against sicilians, petroff and many other openings but I don't think it's a winning advantage. If it's a winning advantage it says that we don't just know anythink about chess if many world champions didn't crushed this opening and played it all they'r career: don't you think it's a little strange for a top grandmaster to say an opening played by an enourmous amount of peoples and top players is weak?

Anand has lost more than half a dozen games to the french in his career, to players like Short, Timman, Bareev .. etc. 

I don't like the french defense because your kingside pieces don't get developed very quickly.

Listen up, read preface to Opening for white according to Anand Voume 6 and Opening for white according to Anand volume 7.

If one GM (out of n of them over time) says something negative about an opening that has been and still is one of the classics (and even if it is written in a book!), and as shown in this thread, the opening has been used extensively and successfully by several other GMs, I for one would hesitate about drawing any far-reaching conclusions.

For some reason the French opening seems to create lots of more discussion than other openings. It seems that you either love or hate it. I belong to the former group.

Did Anand really say that ?

Well, it was still good enough to draw Kasparov

 could that be because u favoid iqp's like the plague

The french is not "suspect". I don't think it's the very strongest opening, but not even close to suspect. Perhaps the winawer might be, but the classical french is fine for black, just that against a player who knows what he's doing positionally you aren't going to have the evil counterplay that you might against weaker players, so the french is considered more of a solid, drawish opening and GM level, but at that level a lot of openings are, even if they're sharp sometimes, since like the marshall attack they could get played out so much they lead to a forced draw or something.

I doubt other amateurs here critisizing the french have looked at it nearly as much as a big french player like myself. If you think you're going to crush black, you're mistaken. If you think you're going to crush black as long as long as you're patient, you're still wrong.

White certainly gets a space advantage, but I would disagree that white could get an overall advantage so much easier. Maybe a tiny bit, at best.

"I also agree. It's not that the french is "unsound" but positionally it is somewhat suspect, and I do not see the point in playing a defence that 1. is rather passive 2. you get a cramped position 3. Garry Kasparov and Anand do not like it>>>when there are a TON of other good openings VS 1.e4 that don't have any of those drawbacks----The Ruy, Scicilian, Petroff---the list goes on and on so It's not that the Frech is "bad" it's just that there is so much other cool stuff to be played out there that I cannot fathom why an amatuer player would choose the french as part of their repertoir and spend dead hours to study it.  "

Black is cramped, but he does not have to be passive. There are tons of ways to slowly improve his position, and he is the one with targets to attack in the form of white's pawn chain. It's played over other openings sometimes simply because it's strategically very interesting, and often gives a closed positional game with counterplay (it's just more subtle counterplay than in the sicilian).

I'm sorry, but it's extremely obvious that you only have these misconceptions about the french because you didn't actually study it. It's very interesting, but you have to be ok with maneouvering and slow strategical play. If you actually studied it a lot I don't think you would feel the same way. Who didn't used to think the french was bad (or "unnecessarily passive") at some time or another in their chess life?

I hope people aren't confusing the french with say the hippo, which truly is a "sit there and do nothing" opening, until white gets impatient and leaves an opening in his center. In the french black is constantly (just slowly) improving his position within the cramped space, and he at the start is the only one with targets. The fact that he has so many chances to undermine white's position compensates for the lack of space and bad bishop, but I guess you can't appreciate that unless you've actually looked at the french a decent amount.