Looking for openings similar to the French

At first, I was really not a big fan of the French because of the light square bishop being hemmed in.  But after giving it a try I feel really comfortable with the opening, win or lose.  I've notive that there is very rarely ever a time where I feel I don't know what to do.  Well, I was wondering what other openings are similar to the french both for White and as a defense against d4?

Contrary to what Olympian said, while you can't force such positions as White, the French as Black has a close companion against 1.d4, and that is the King's Indian Defense.  Here's why:

1) Both apply the "Theory of Pawn Pointing" - When the center is completely blocked by pawns (i.e. 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 or 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.Bd3 f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5), the theory of pawn pointing applies.  Attacks will occur on the flanks, and the direction in which your pawns point dictate which flank you should be attacking.  So for the French Winawer (or MacCutcheon or Advance would also apply), that's Kingside for White, Queenside for Black, while in the Classical King's Indian, that's Queenside for White, Kingside for Black.

2) Both feature the same downfall for Black, the Bad Bishop.  In the French, it's the LSB, in the King's Indian, it's the DSB.

3) Both are agressive defenses.

I am NOT a firm believer in "sister openings" as they are NOTHING alike.  "Sister Openings" meaning same pawn structure for Black, like the QGD and French, Caro-Kann and Slav, or King's Indian and Pirc, they play nothing alike.

A French player should be playing the King's Indian.  Same blocked center.  Same pawn-pointing themes.  Etc.

I play the French, Benoni, Franco-Benoni, and Sicilian Kan.

None of these are similar, as ThrillerFan points out.

OTOH, Black often must suffer with a cramped position in all of the above.

Ya you aren't going to get the same opening. If you like the French enough then play 1... e6 to d4. Then decide if you want a Nimzo or QGD. I play a French probably 75% of the time to e4, and to d4 I either play a KID, Slav, or attempt some 1. e6 2. Bb4 stuff to throw people off.

White gets a slight advantage. Converting this advantage is not always simple.

What is it that you enjoy about the French? The closed positions? The chances for counterpunching that it offers? If you tell us that, it will be easier to suggest openings to you.

One thing you could do is look at the opening repertoires of the leading exponents of the French to see which openings appealed to them.

To answer your question, I think it's the completely blocked center.  It slows down white's advance and give me a more positional game.  It means I'm not as commital with my pieces.  I've been using 1. nf3 with white but I'm really starting to think its too restrictive in terms of space.  I always seem to be having trouble with my pawns getting in the way.  Maybe with white I need to go for a space advantage?  I really don't know.

I also really like your suggestion to look at French Player's Repertoires which I will do.

My other problem seems to be the King's Indian.  I have real trouble against it with White.  But I just looked at some of Tigran Petrosian's games against it and I think I might have isolated a problem I'm having with move order.

To someone else's point, using the Queen's Gambit against d4 is probably a good idea.  I"ve tried the Nimzo and liked it.  I also like the fact that I only seem to have to deal with one transposition which is if they play Nf3 instead of Nc3 I just go into the Queen's Indain.

Now that I think about it, I think my real problem with White is that it has so little choice in choosing what opening is played.  What I really want to do with whie is stop his counterplay and choke the life out of him.  But I haven't found a good opening to do that.  This is the oter reason I like the French it really kills white's counterplay.

Alright, here are my suggestions:

As black: the King's Indian Defence and the Stonewall Dutch

As white: the Botvinnik System in the English Opening

If you are looking for a very positional way of meeting the KID, try the Fianchetto Variation.

The French players I looked at were Korchnoi and Uhlmann. Both play d4 as white. Korchnoi went the Nimzo/QID way, where Uhlmann played the KID/Grunfeld stuff. So it's just your own taste. Korchnoi also threw a Dragon at e4 from time to time. So take that how you will

I looked at another thread on chess.com which asked about strong French Defense Players, and a lot of them played the English as white.  So I think I'm going to have a look at that.

I play, with success, the Slav as black, where there are similar structures.

May I please have a link to that particular thread, Senchean? Thanks.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/top-french-defense-players

There you go.

Thanks. I thought I should have a second response to 1.e4. 1...e5 is what I usually play.

Looking at what you would expect .... French, Caro-Kann, Sicilian...

I really enjoy the French.  It is a little restricitive in terms of your own space, and you have a bad light square bishop to deal with.  But it completely kills White's counterplay and is a very positional game.  But you have to remember that once the pieces come into contact it can turn into a very tactical game which will generally result in an endgame.  At least that has been my experience with it.

Did you prefer it to Caro or other responses to 1.e4?

I"m starting to.  But I'm going to have to play the Caro again and more readily compare the two before I make a decision.  Plus I can always play both.  One doesn't preclude the other.

Are you sure about that? One doesn't preclude the other I don't think you can play them both simultaneously. :-)

I think you want to eventually get experience in all well-known openings for various reasons, even if you don't make them a part of your regular repertoire.

I have a feeling that my most common replies to 1.e4 will end up being 1...e5 and Caro_Kann, but who knows. I'll try it all.

I have played the nimzowitsch defence to 1.e2-e4 all season, it's very similar to your French defence.

Explain please.