The French Defense?

Can anyone post some really sharp responses for white when one faces the french.  I play a guy locally and would like to do some preparation before our next match.  He always plays the french as black.  All I know is the exchange variation, but I'm looking for something a bit more out of the box (if you know what I mean). 

If you don't mind posting game boards with trapping ideas.  And also explaining the aim of the Frenc (posting good websites, gameboard examples, or video tutorials).

Thanks anyone.

thanks everyone!

3.Nc3 Bb4

4.e5

Don't play the exchange variation - it just leads to equality for Black. (I used to like the French until I realized that the c8 bishop can turn into a brick. It would be best for white to keep things that way)

I personally think the advance variation is best against the French.

But if you're looking for most sharp, I would say the Milner-Barry Gambit. (Lecture has a lesson on it on FICS, so go on FICS and wait for it or download it off of the Lecture Bot website)

Good Luck!

I wouldn't recommend Milner-Barry black's defence is too mapped out these days. Other advanced lines perfectly good though. Sam Collins recommends in book "Attacking rep for white" or something similar.

He uses a lot of Grischuk games if can't get book.

I like the exhange variation, I personally recommend it.

the best way to face the french defense is to play the french winawer with 3.Nc3 Bb4 or Nf6 but the best is to play the french and examine games of alexei DREEV. he is the master of french and some games of KASIMDZHANOV.I play the french defense with black and, realy, I don't lose lot of games with it. but the Bd3 always put me in trouble.

getting your queen to attack his g7 pawn is very strong

but I don't siggest to you to play the exchange variation; the way to play it is to be great in endgames.if not, don't play it; the advance is good.

The Tarrasch.

• 1. e4 e6
• 2. d4 d5
• 3. Nd2 c5
• 4. Ngf3

or 4. exd5

• 1. e4 e6
• 2. d4 d5
• 3. Nd2 Nf6
• 4. e5 Nfd7
• 5. f4

or 5. c3.

I'm not sure what's out there instruction wise on these lines though, but you can find games on chessgames.com!

Do you have a link to the video download?

Sharp? Depends what variation you want to play...

Here are some suggestions:

Milner Barry Gambit!

Alekhine Chatard Attack!

Here's a nice aggressive line favoured by Boris Spassky in his WCC match with Petrosian.

The aggressive choice favoured by most of the super-GMs these days is the steinitz-boleslavsky variation.

and then of course there's the winawer which is completely nuts. Fabiano Caruana plays it quite a bit so you might want to look at his games for some recent theory.

If you want to learn more about the French, join the French Defense Fanatics.  That said, play Nc3 and if Nf6, play e5 followed by pawnstorming on the kingside and castling queenside.  If Bb4, you should try a move they have likely never looked at.  Nge2!  Then if dxe4 a3 and Bxc3 is essentially forced to keep the pawn Nxc3 Nf6 Bg5 and you get your pawn back.  If f5 instead of Nf6, then you can play f3 and play a gambit that is quite good for White.

The French Defence is plain boring and sad. My personal favorite way to play for white is the Tarrasch, on this website at least my record with it is 100% v.s the French, it rubs French players the wrong way, but it does have a ton of theory which you have to learn traps and ect. Here are the first few basic moves, the responses are too numerous to post any so you can figure some out with a book or somethin' but the important thing is that it's a good way to play for white and can lead to some sharp play in some cases, and that's what yur looking for right?

ericmittens: do you know of ways to transpose into any of those lines if play goes:

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 (which it pretty much always does against me), then usually 4. e5 c5. At this point I normally play 5. a3 and force the issue, but can find myself struggling with a weak centre.

Any suggestions?

Him playing French defense already means he is losing :)

Personally i think French defense is really boring and it give white big advantage for developing.

thanks a lot guys 

 The winawer is full of crazy complications, but the most aggressive for white are the Qg4 lines.

Something like 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 0-0 8.Bd3 Nbc6 9.Qh5 Ng6 10.Nf4 Qc7 11.h4 c4 12.Bxg6 fxg6

This is just one line, the winawer is extremely theoretical/tactical...thats why people love to play it as black.

Hi immortalgamer - I think you have a lot of good advice from others here already in this thread, but as a player who struggled for a long time against the french and finally found an answer, I found studying the winawer variation to be a bear of study given that I tend to face the french roughly 1-2 times in 20 games. It is aggressive and complex, but since French players are ready for it so frequently I found that they simply had me out-booked and knew how to punish inaccuracies. I really recommend the Tarrasch variation even though it may be not what you're initially looking for. It has a slow start, but it frequently does get sharp, and as someone mentioned earlier, it somehow does rub french players the wrong way. Somehow the Tarrasch variation is like "fighting annoyance (the french defense) with annoyance (the Tarrasch )". Since I've started playing the Tarrasch variation as white I've won with it 70-80% of the time.

There's also the "Korchnoi Gambit" within the Tarrasch variation which runs like this: 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5 Bd3 c5 6 c3 Nc6 6.Ngf3 Qb6 8 0-0 cxd4 9 cxd4 Nxd4 10 Nxd4 Qxd4 11 Nf3 

Here's a great lecture overview taken from one of Korchnoi's own games on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MmLnZSpKec

The idea behind the gambit is that white opens up the c-file and quickly gets tremendous initiative with establishing rooks along it.