French TN ideas

Tonight I'm playing GM Ketevan Arikhamia-Grant in a simultaneous exibition.

I play the french and I'm expecting the steinitz variation. Does anyone have any novelties or cool ideas I can pull out against her.

Obviously if I use your idea I'll get back to you on how it went.

Scrap the French, your GM opponent will be too booked up. The best idea is to play 1... a6 followed by 1... b5. They're bound to slip up at some point. 

Nytik:

That strategy has been disproven several times. Unless you're joking. Then lol.

Hell, people get slaughtered in blindfold simuls with that strategy. Just saying.

Absolutely not. I don't need to double my worries by running away from my main weapons. GMs are more booked up and ALL the openings than a player like me and playing ...a5 will be punished twice as severely as the french will. I'm not spending money to sit in a crushing, passive position all night.

My aim is to reach a playable position and set her as many problems as I can. She's more likely to slip up that way.

Looking at your rating I'd make sure you put in all your concentration into avoiding tactical mishaps, that'll be your best shot of giving her a good game :)

Of course. I'm going to do my utmost to check all my moves for tactical integrity and just do my best. =)

You're playing black?  After 1. e4...e6  2.e5  the best percentage move by far is d6.

     Then if white plays f4 or Nf3 for the third move play Nc6.  Don't try any
tricks, just play safe, strategic chess and keep all your pieces covered for as
long as possible.

I think that is the definition of protected, and if you have 2 defenders for one attacker then it is overprotected.  I see what you are saying though.  Watch out for double attacks.  You could add to it to watch out not to overload your pieces. 

Do you know of any particularly extremely sharp lines that you could book up heavily on (that is, so the GM can't take advantage of the sharp position since better players are better at that)

Unfortunately not. I don't want to go into uber-sharp complications as its not to my style and its very much hers. She's an agressive attacker at home in sharp positions. Most of her repetoire is very sharp variations so I'll steer clear of that one and just do my best.

Thanks folks

Make the simul giver have to make as many decisions as possible, as opposed to giving them the freedom to just plant their pieces where and whenever they want. The more decisions you give them to make the more they're likely to make a hasty move because they are hurrying to get to the next board.

The game is up for all those who want to see it.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/gm-keti-grant-vs-me