Short game against French Defence

Here's a game I just finished against the French. It went very well from my point of view - it is quite strange how the French can often be slow and positional in most lines, but if White gets an early queen to g4, Black's position can come under a lot of pressure. This was over in 19 moves:

I like how you take advantage of the holes he left by trading his black Bishop off the board, and how you simultaneously pressurise his Queen as she goes positionally out-of-bounds.  Well played.  This is a prime example of why black should develop his position and get his King castled before dancing around with his Queen.

Nice game. I think 7. ... g6 is not black's strongest reply to 7. Qg4. In that position as black I would play 7. ... Ne7 or Kf8.

But I agree that black's 6. Qb6 is not the strongest either.

In fact, as black I would deviate as early as 5. ... Bxc3+ where I play 5. ... cxd4.

Here's an example of a game I played with this variation of the Winawer where white also played the Qg4 idea. I have not annotated this game but would welcome any comments.

Steve

Nice game. I play the French... it's instructive to see how quickly a loss of tempo like ...Qd8-Qb6-Qa5 rather than ...Qd8-Qa5 can lead Black to serious problems.