French logic

 The logic behind the French defense is totally different from the Colle's. If I try to summarize it:

• seduce white to play an early e5
• trade all pieces
• nibble away the center pawns

And what is left is a winning endgame with a protected passer.

Ad 1. Your barter goods are: space and your king can be attacked. But lack of space is only a problem when your pieces have no good places to go. The French defense is so designed that that should be no problem.

Ad 2. White must attack on the kingside. Otherwise he might end up worse. He need his light squared bishop and queen for that. Without these two pieces a mating attack is next to impossible. So black must undertake rabid attempts to trade these pieces. For more than one reason: No queen and bishop means: no kingside attack. Less pieces means less problems with a lack of space. No queen means being closer to a good endgame. And trading the light squared bishops means that white lacks his good bishop for your bad bishop. The threat of trading pieces becomes an extra weapon. You threaten to trade while white must avoid it.

Ad 3. The early advance of the e-pawn makes the center vulnerable. Black must attack it because otherwise he might not be able to stop the kingside attack. c5 and f6 are designed for this. After the logical pawn trades cxd4, cxd4 and fxe5, dxe5 you get a winning pawn structure with a protected passer.

This approach is quite different from the Colle. Yet it is very clever and effective. Especially when white has no idea what you are up to.

I'm over the moon that I finally have found some logic in the openings I play. My mind no longer feels numb when I'm playing. Or dumb, for that matter.

Hopefully I can find the logic behind the Queens Indian too.

The Colle is close to my latest focus on a kingside attack. The king as sitting duck and the line of attack as prime element of focus. The ideas behind the French prove that I must be not too narrow minded. A hidden goal is easier to pursue than a goal that is easy to see for everybody.

IM Krykun has provided me with about a hundred ideas for the French defense, and if I'm not mistaken, a lot of these ideas can be made piece- or position independent with a little (or a lot) effort. What is what my next post will be about, probably.