French Defense is an opening that uses by Black with a double edge position which means we can have a control and attacking the center while defending our king. And the reason why the French Defense named French Defense is because it is popularized by the French player in France against London Chess Players and the color of the pieces that uses French Defense is black and we know that if you are black in Chess you are commonly defense your piece because white plays first.
This opening is mostly used by the Grandmasters like GM Simon Williams, GM Giri Anish and even Magnus Carlsen (World Chess Champion) used this opening.
This opening is characterised by the moves: 1. e4 e6 and commonly followed by the move 2.d4 d5, with Black intending to play the move c5 at a later stage to attack the d4 pawn later, attacking White's centre and gaining space on the queenside is the main strategy for this kind of opening while defending our black king. As you can see to the picture that I showed recently, is the top 5 moves played by white against French Defense. And in that two move which is Knight c3 and Knight d2 I prefer to play Rubenstein French Defense because it came to the same result.
The number one (1) picture shows the variation called Paulsen Variation and the second pic (2) shows the variation called Tarrasch Variation. I recommend to play dxe4 especially when you have less time to study some chess opening and it's variation. I recommend to study Rubenstein Variation against this 2 aggressive play for white because of this result (Nxe4).
The white plays Nxe4 and we can respond by playing Nd7 with the idea of playing Ngf6 to trade with the opponent's Knight. But what if this move happens
Nxe4, Nd7
Nf3, Ngf6
Bg5,
If this happen to you I suggest to play Be7 to removed the pin from the Knight over the Queen like this
This kind of setup will help you to attack the opponent's castled king without getting your king castles. If the white bishop takes Knight I suggest to take the bishop using your pawn like this.
In this kind of setup you notice that I show the ideas that you will use when you are going to this kind of opening, you can play Rg8 to control the vertical G file. You can move your pawn to b6 to give your bishop a square to play Bishop to b7 to add pressure to the center diagonal. And my favorite move is f5 to push out the enemies Knight on e4 and gain some tempo and square control of our dark Bishop.
And the most common play of the opponent especially the club players or not too much experience player is the moves like
e4, e6
d4 d5
And the next move and the third common move is e5 and to play against e5 or also known as Advance Variation you must respond c5 as a black to threat and weaken the d4 pawn.
And I want to show you this common trick that I always encounter in the lower level players in Chess.
e4 e6
d4 d5
e5 c5
c3 Nc6
Nf3 Bd7
And the common move Bb5 is a mistake move, because Knight can capture the e5 pawn.
If the Knight takes the Knight on e5 then the Bishop on b5 is hanging and free to capture and if the bishop captured our bishop to d7 we can simply take the bishop back by using Knight to d7.
And the second common French Defense encounter is
e4 e6
d4 d5
exd5 exd5
And this idea is called French Defense Exchange Variation. And I experienced that I don't know what to do after this and then I found out the continuation is to develop Bishop and trade our light color Bishop to the enemies light color Bishop, castles, develop knights and give the support to f5 pawn by playing c7-c6 pawn. This are my recently wins as a black at French Defense to show that this is very effective especially to a club players or newbies.
For more information, theories, concepts and strategies to play this French Defense opening I highly recommend to watch Simon Williams Video about French Defense and improve your game style as a beginner to Master.
that's incomplete lol?