Introduction

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another school year, and, much more importantly, another year of Chess in the Library’s tournaments. As we advance through higher grades, take advanced classes, and advance in our careers, hopefully our chess skills will advance as well. That’s why today’s blog is on the Advance French.

Before we begin, I’d like to apologize in advance for all the terrible puns incoming.

The French Defense first emerged in the early 1800s. Its earliest recorded game was in 1834, when the Paris Chess Club beat the London Chess Club using 1.e4 e6. Back then, clubs had to send each other every single move by mail, so you can imagine how excruciatingly slow the game was – not unlike some French Defense variations. Maybe if they had Chess.com in those times, the French would be more exciting, and the below quote wouldn’t exist:

“I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all openings.”
-Wilhelm Steinitz, World Chess Champion

But to be fair, when Steinitz said this, the dreary Exchange Variation was the popular way to play. On the other hand, the Advance Variation was considered a bit of a mistake.

Elite players would write entire books to slam the Advance and any other chess ideas (or players!) they disliked. Then, a different chess master would fall for this archaic literary ragebait, and write another book to argue and over-praise the Advance. (cough cough Nimzowitsch and Tarrasch)

While it’s interesting how the Advance French was the battleground for these two titans of verbose chess instruction, our understanding of openings has advanced greatly since then. Today, we emphasize the nuance behind opening choices. There are many reasons for players of all levels to pick 3.e5.

Why Play the Advance?

The Advance, 3.e5, is one of the three French mainlines (along with 3.Nc3 and 3.Nd2). In general, playing mainline openings is a great idea because they’re practically challenging, instructive, and have been favored by chess champions for decades. The Advance, for example, was a favourite of Sveshnikov, Shirov, and Grischuk, and has recently been tried by Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.

The Advance French can exert a great cramping effect on the Black player, and teach you how to use a space advantage. You’ll also learn about pawn chains, pawn breaks, and ways to find play when the position’s closed. And, if you follow my favourite lines, you’ll learn how to gambit a pawn and build up a crushing position!

Lastly, I like how the Advance French is thematic. The recurring pawn structure means all the positions you get will be kind of similar, which makes it easy to learn key patterns and see them in games. This isn’t true of other lines like 3.Nc3, where you could face fiery Winawers or calm Rubinsteins, leading to vastly different play. 

But of course, you didn’t need to read any of that, as my recommendation is enough to make you learn the key ideas of the Advance:

Key Ideas

Before learning concrete theory, it’s important to familiarise yourself with general concepts. This is so you’ll know what you’re doing when your opponents inevitably play some goofy move, escaping your soon-to-be-vast theoretical knowledge. This section will go over four common ideas for both sides in the Advance French.

1. The Pawn Chain

A pawn chain is a series of pawns on a diagonal. These pawns protect each other, and can be very powerful by taking space, restricting your opponent, and setting up future pawn breaks. White’s pawn chain in the Advance French is set up after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3:

This pawn chain can also be used for attack. Generally, pawn chains point towards the area you want to play in, as the furthest advanced pawn shields and supports its neighbors. Here, our e5-pawn gives our f-pawn safe passage on the kingside. Black usually castles kingside too, so with the support of a d3-bishop, f1-rook, and other pawns, the kingside attack plan of f4-f5-f6 can actually be very strong. All thanks to our pawn chain!

Unfortunately, we as chess players should remember that sometimes our opponents get to chain together a couple moves as well, and we should care about what they’re doing. Black can set up his own pawn chain in the Advance Variation!

Black’s pawn chain, shown above, runs opposite to ours, forming both a closed position and a fierce cross-town rivalry. It points towards the queenside, so Black should try to play over there. 

Usually Black plays …b7-b5, reinforcing the c4-pawn and gaining more queenside space. From there, he can follow up with the protective …a6 or the ambitious …a5, planning a …b5-b4 pawn break. That would rip open the queenside and let Black use his huge space advantage. We could face infiltrations and pressure on the base of our pawn chain.

The …c4 push also controls the d3-square, a common home for our bishop, and the b3-square. This can be a deadly outpost for the Black knight, which gets there by Nc6-a5-b3. We play Nbd2 to keep an eye on that square.

On a more positive note, notice how …c4 comes at a huge cost to Black. It releases all the pressure on our d4-pawn. As we’ll see in Key Idea #2, pressuring and capturing the d4-pawn is a crucial plan for Black. 

Also, in the above position, we have ideas of b3 and a4, attacking Black’s pawn chain and limiting its influence. This could cause a huge chain reaction of pawn trades.

Anyway, as I wrote this bit, and typed the words “pawn chain” about 30 times, I realized that the word ‘chain’ sounds a bit… restrictive. Like us daring Advance French players are being chained down by horrible chess rules and generalizations. So, to end this section on a happier note, I want to suggest renaming the sad pawn chain to a happy pawn staircase. Let’s climb up to chess mastery 🙂

2. Attack on the d4-pawn

The move 3.e5, leading us into the Advance, has one key drawback. It immediately invites the counterpunching 3…c5, putting pressure on our d4-pawn from the early opening. 

Black’s most basic plan in the Advance French is to attack and eventually capture this pawn. Don’t underestimate this idea! Entire middlegames can be centered around the d4-pawn, and giving it away will crumble your position.

After Black attacks our d4-pawn with 3…c5:
We defend it with 4.c3.
Black attacks it with 4…Nc6.
We defend it with 5.Nf3.

Here Black keeps pressuring with a knight maneuver starting from 5…Nge7. The knight wants to go to f5, where it can poke our d4-pawn. We can’t dislodge this knight without weakening our position or giving up a bishop pair. But what we can do is a cool knight maneuver of our own!

The idea of 6.Na3! is to bring this knight to c2, where it defends the key d4-pawn. It’s only been six moves, and we already see how both sides are shuffling their pieces around, only focusing on the d4-pawn. Bear in mind the Na3-c2 defense, as well as Be3 when possible, and your d4-pawn should stay rock-solid.

3. Key Pawn Breaks

A pawn break is a move that changes the position’s pawn structure, ideally in a way that helps you. Usually, it causes a trade, opening up your position and activating your pieces. White’s main pawn break is f2-f4-f5, and Black’s main pawn break is f7-f6.

As mentioned earlier, our f5 pawn push can be a really powerful way to break out a kingside attack. Take the below position, which happened in a real online game between 2000-rated players.

Black has deployed too many pieces away from the kingside, and we can capitalize on this. The best way to start a kingside move is to push our f-pawn: first f4, then we try to play f5. We’ll use our queen, rook, and two bishops to ensure all hell breaks loose on the kingside.

1.f4 Qd7 2.f5!

Black plays Qd7 to defend f5, stopping us from pushing our pawn there, and we’ll just… do it anyway! This pawn break wrecks Black’s pawn structure and opens lines of attack.

2…exf5 3.Bd3 g6 4.Bh6 Re8

With Bd3 and Bh6, we activated both our bishops for the attack. We also threatened to take the f5-pawn. Black defends it with another pawn, so we’re unable to capture it. What do we do instead?

If you thought the move was 5.Bxf5!, you’d be right! Our pawn break weakened Black’s pawn structure, and gave our pieces avenues of attack. Now, this tactic exploits that. If Black captures this bishop, we win on the spot: 5…gxf5 6.Qg3+ Kh8 7.Qg7#. Pretty cool that a pawn break can bring about a checkmate in seven moves.

All that being said, remember that king hunts are really rare and situational. You’ll actually see Black’s f7-f6 break in many more games.

The move …f6 tries to resolve Black’s cramped position by getting rid of the imposing e5-pawn. It can open up lines for Black’s pieces, like the f-file and the b8-h2 diagonal. It also lets Black access new squares like f6 and d6.

This position came about after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.a3 c4 7.Be2 f6!?. Black’s pawn break is well-timed. Most people just castle, but this allows 8.O-O fxe5 9.dxe5 Qc7. Black breaks the pawn chain (I mean, pawn staircase) and places a lot of pressure on a suddenly lonely e5-pawn. 10.Bf4 comes too late, and after 10…Bc5 Black enjoys a comfortable position.

Playing as White, what’s our approach? Well, let’s go back a hundred years, or back to the start of this blog, to Aron Nimzowitsch. One of his greatest strategic breakthroughs was the concept of overprotection. 

Overprotection is the proactive idea of defending a square or pawn with way more pieces than actually needed. Why break our backs like this? Well, we guard this key pawn because the opponent will surely try to trade it off. When that happens, all the overprotective pieces get unleashed. 

So to overprotect our e5-pawn, instead of 7.Be2, how about 7.Bf4!?

After 7.Bf4, the e5-pawn being traded off would not only help our knight but also our bishop. This discourages …f6. 

See that if Black plays …f6 anyway, we’d get the position on the right. We’d have a huge lead in development, much better pieces, and a strong threat of Qh5+ which would win on the spot. The d2-knight will soon come to f3 for support, and the pawn trade created more weaknesses for black (like the backwards e6-pawn) than open lines.

Keep in mind the concept of overprotection, as it’ll come in handy to prevent Black’s pawn breaks. There’s one more key idea to cover, and this one’s a little more off the chain…

4. Crazy h4 and g4 Ideas

This last concept is a bit more advanced, and quite interesting. 

Usually (read: hopefully) we’re taught as new players not to randomly push wing pawns, especially on the side we want to castle. This is great for preventing beginner implosions, but sometimes we get to bend these rules to actually play good moves. Sometimes we get to play h4.

h4! The idea behind this move is h5, kicking the g6-knight back to e7. This seriously messes with Black’s development scheme, because the knight on e7 blocks in its bishop teammate. We also take a lot of kingside space. 

Notice how Black can’t play h5 in response to h4 because it’s extremely weakening. We can follow up with Bxg6, causing horrid doubled pawns. Also, even though h4 does weaken our kingside, Black has no way to make use of that. He’s behind in development and has less space.

So keep in mind these ideas: h4 to target a g6-knight, and also g4 to attack an f5-knight.

Conclusion

The Advance French is an instructive, thematic way to enliven your 1.e4 games. Remember the pawn chain principles, time your pawn breaks, push your h-pawn and guard your d-pawn.

If you’ve survived my groaners this far, I applaud you! This blog will be the first link of a three-part chain, each building on the previous like a staircase. (Still alive?) In the next blog, we’ll go over concrete Advance French theory, to help you build a repertoire, so stay tuned! And make sure you play the Advance at our next tournament this January, for all those juicy points against the sad French faithful.

Introduction

For many chess players, Theory wears the costume of some kind of cartoon villain. Probably with a maniacal cackle, He steals our precious chess hours, reducing learning to memorization. But I don’t think it should be this way! Like theories in science – the theory of gravity, for example – they should be a basis for our opening improvement. Something to keep us grounded but still let us explore.

Now that we know some basic Advance French concepts, the theory is (ironically) where we’ll see them in action. As you read and follow along on a board, don’t commit everything to memory, but bring your magnifying glass to spot our key ideas. 

Let’s get off the ground!

Basic Theory

We’ve already learned the first few moves of the Advance French. We open with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5. The battle turns to the d4-pawn after 3…c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3. Nothing groundbreaking yet, but now Black is at a tabiya – a position with a few different theoretical routes. We’ll go over the three most common.

The Slick 5…Nge7

Recall the key idea of the d4-pawn battle. Black plays 5…Nge7 to maneuver the knight to f5, with the end goal of pressuring d4 as usual. But now you’ll learn how to hold your ground and stop this scheme forever. Just capture the knight on f5! That’s why we play 6.Bd3.

Black takes our pawn before playing the knight to f5: 6…cxd4 7.cxd4 Nf5. If Black forgets this move order and plays …Nf5 straightaway, dxc5 gives a comfortable position. See the diagram sideline.

See that 7…Nf5 here is nearly forced as the knight on e7 traps in its own bishop. It must move, and doesn’t have anywhere better to go – remember …Ng6 almost always runs into an emboldened h4!. As planned, we immediately assassinate this knight by playing 8.Bxf5 exf5. 

This trade gives Black the bishop pair. In return, we get rid of the strong knight and wreck Black’s pawn structure. As the dust settles, we just develop with 9.Nc3.

Black has to defend his d5-pawn from our Nc3-Qb3 plan, so he follows up with 9…Be6. It’s a very effective idea – we’re not getting that pawn anytime soon – but it leaves Black with a “tall-pawn” on e6. A tall-pawn is a rude nickname for a bishop so useless it may as well be a pawn. Make sure to unleash that obscenity on your opponents.

The line’s final move prepares the ground for the middlegame: 10.h4! 

A few ideas behind this: we obviously want to take space on the kingside, and do so in a way that isn’t significantly weakening. This pawn advance also stops the …h6-g5 plan for Black. Moreover, we unlock the surprising plan of Rh1-h3-g3. The rook lift pressures g7 – this hinders kingside castling and can tie down the f8-bishop to defense.

That’s the end of our theory. Later, we generally play the maneuver Ke1-f1-g1. The artificial castling safeguards our king while leaving us open to kingside rook lifts. We can play Nc3-e2-f4 to give this knight more influence over the game. Black usually castles queenside, but fret not because we can push our queenside pawns to attack over there too! And, too bad for us theory nerds, a chess game is played, albeit a chess game you have a ~60% chance of winning.

The Quiet 5…Bd7

Another option for Black in the earlier tabiya is the simple developing move 5…Bd7. Black gets his infamous prisoner, the French bishop, off its starting square, and prepares Rc8. As before, we continue natural development with 6.Bd3. 

Our dizzying development speed – we’re about to castle as Black hasn’t developed any kingside pieces – means this move hides a subtle threat. Black often continues with 6…Rc8, not understanding the gravity of our reply: 7.dxc5. 

First, with dxc5, we got rid of the constantly harassed d4-pawn. Also, after 7…Bxc5, we can just castle, 8.O-O, while defending our f2-pawn. The Black bishop is poorly placed on c5 and invites the space-reaping b2-b4 and a2-a4 advances. Lastly, though our e5-pawn loses some defense, our light squared bishop being actively developed to d3 (and not the usual e2) allows us to defend it with a rook/queen along the e-file.

Since we have a comfortable position there, Black may choose to miraculously rewind time to play 6…cxd4 instead – breaking our dxc5 utopia and spacetime causality. We’ll recapture this pawn, 7.cxd4. Black’s most natural response is 7…Qb6, pressuring the d4-pawn and exploiting our light squared bishop’s obstruction. This bishop must move, right?

Wrong! We’re just going to castle, and this gives up a pawn after 8.O-O Nxd4.

We’re playing a gambit! Instead of capturing the knight, which activates Black’s queen, we’ll continue developing with 9.Nbd2. Here, Black most commonly takes our knight, and though piece trades are bad for us gambiteers, 9…Nxf3 10.Nxf3 does open up the position a lot.

Black has many ideas now, the most precise of which is probably …Bb5, forcing a trade of the despised French bishop. But for most people, 10…Bc5 is more natural, to develop a piece that hasn’t moved before. It doesn’t seem like there’s much left in this position for us. But think back to a few paragraphs ago, when we saw a bishop which was misplaced on c5 because it allowed a certain queenside pawn advance.

If you found the move, congrats for so rapidly absorbing the barbaric spirit of this mini-repertoire. We’re sending one more pawn through the shredder to open even more lines: 11.b4!?!

The idea behind this is to open up the b-file for our queen’s rook. 11…Bxb4?! 12.Rb1 (pinning the bishop to the queen) Qa5 (getting out of the pin) 13.a3!. When the bombarded bishop gets out of the way, our rook will capture the b7-pawn, infiltrating deep into Black’s position. The rook on b7 can also tie the Black king down to the d7-bishop’s defense, preventing castling. Now just one pawn behind, our development and attacking avenues give us more than enough compensation.

Also, note that 13…Bxa3?? fails to 14.Ra1 winning the bishop. Not that opponents at our exceptional skill level would fall into that, right?

Anyway, Black has an alternative move we should consider way back on move nine. Though 9…Nxf3 is a very popular try, I think the down-to-earth 9…Nc6 line actually poses more problems for us.

We’re in a more closed position – not what we want.

Since Black didn’t take our f3-knight, our d2-knight is stuck in an awkward space, blocking in our bishop, which in turn blocks in the rook. So we’ll get this bumbling knight out of the way with 10.Nb3 where it eyes some key squares.

Black’s kingside pieces hesitantly emerge at last, starting after 10…Nge7. We continue developing too. Best is to get our bishop out with tempo: 11.Be3 hitting the Black queen, which retreats via 11…Qc7. See how …Bc5 wasn’t possible because of our b3-knight’s influence. 

Lining up the rook against this deserting queen, we largely complete our harmonious development, 12.Rc1. Finally, after 12…Ng6 we play a powerful knight advance with several ideas behind it: 13.Nc5!

That’s all the theory I expect you guys to remember, but to illustrate our position’s strength, here are some ways the game could go on: 

• 13…Be7 14.b4, strong space advantage and queenside pressure for us
• 13…Ngxe5 14.Nxe5 Qxe5 15.Nxb7, sound according to the engine, but this exposes Black’s position more, making it hard to defend in practice – we have a 65% winrate in the amateur database
• 13…Bxc5 14.Bxc5 Ngxe5 15.Nxe5 Qxe5 16.Re1 where Black can’t castle, we have the bishop pair, better-placed pieces and long-term positional pressure that does compensate for 2-3 whole pawns

Black is going through some rough ground. Our brutish approach towards 5…Bd7 (and perhaps the French in general!) is satisfyingly opposite to what the Black player expects after playing such a quiet move. So aside from being sound and tricky, these lines give a psychological advantage too.

The Rebellious 5…Qb6

Black’s most popular fifth move, especially at amateur level. It’s so mind-numblingly common, in fact, that sometimes we gloss over its sheer rebelliousness. In what other mainline does one bring out their queen as the second piece developed, as early as move five, to a fairly advanced square, breaking all your chess teacher’s rules? (Don’t answer that, there’s definitely a few, but my mind’s gone blank)

Black’s 5…Qb6 attacks our d4-pawn, so we’ll carefully not defend it with 6.Bd3. This follows our usual development scheme, the bishop a sniper behind the pawn chain’s wall. But we do give up a pawn (is the wall crumbling?) after 6…cxd4. We commit to the bit by castling: 7.O-O.

We’re playing a gambit, but don’t worry, we’re on solid theoretical ground. Black can choose not to take our pawn here. 7…Bd7 8.cxd4 transposes to the main line of the previous section.

But 7…dxc3 8.Nxc3 and the real fun starts; only for us, though. 

It’s often said (by miserable materialistic grinders) that a pawn is a pawn. But sometimes active pieces, rapid development, and king safety can be pawns too. We’re going to use these fancy pawns to attack Black’s king. 

Soon, Be3 will come with tempo, and we can actively place our rooks on c1 and e1. Our d3-bishop can initiate Greek gift sacrifices, dying with honor. The headstrong e5-pawn controls d6 and f6. We get ideas of Bg5 (potential knight pins) and Nb5 (hopping into d6).

One move Black can play, preventing the latter idea, is 8…a6. A good response is always 9.Be3, developing actively with tempo. Here, our bishop importantly controls the c5- and b6-squares. Black’s most popular retreat is 9…Qc7, keeping the queen a bit involved, and eying our e5-pawn. 

Many moves are fine here, but I prefer 10.Na4.

Taking on e5 here is remarkably common and remarkably horrible. After 10…Nxe5 11.Nxe5 Qxe5 12.Nb6 Rb8 13.Qa4+ is crushing because the Black king is forced to move. Black loses castling rights and strands his king centrally where it’ll be tormented for many moves to come.

Less intuitive is 10…Nge7, calmly developing, realising that Nb6 isn’t a huge threat because the rook can just move. This is Black’s best approach. We continue with 11.Rc1, a common idea to line up the rook against the enemy queen, setting up future pin threats. Black usually continues developing with 11…Ng6, opening up the bishop and also hitting our e5-pawn. To defend the e5-pawn, we’ll first clear our bishop out of the way with tempo (12.Bb6! Qb8) and then guard it with the rook: 13.Re1.

A much better try for Black is 8…Bd7. Black doesn’t create any unnecessary weaknesses, develops the bishop and prepares to activate the queenside rook. Again we play 9.Be3, but here Black’s best move is fully retreating with 9…Qd8. Without an early …a6, a queen on c7 would be too weak to future Nb5 ideas.

(Note that 9…d4, a clever-looking fork, fails to 10.Nxd4 Nxd4 11.Qg4 picking the piece back up with advantage.)

We’ll continue with 10.Re1, developing the rook and preparing to defend the e5-pawn. To do that, we have to move our e3-bishop out of the way. One option is Bf4, but the overprotection is less effective when Black likely won’t play the f6-break. The bishop can also be attacked by Ne7-Ng6. 

Better is the very rare idea of Bd2!. This defends the c3-knight. Black would love to play Bb4 and Bxc3, getting development and mitigating his space disadvantage through trades. So putting the bishop on d2 prevents this idea. If …Bxc3, we’d take back and get a nifty c3-bishop patrolling d4 and e5.

But after 10…Nge7, we have an even better place to move this bishop, with the very tricky 11.Bg5!. The main point is that the most intuitive and common move, even in high-level slow games, is 11…h6??, which loses on the spot!! 12.Nb5! offers a bishop in exchange for a checkmate… and Black faces serious material loss and king safety issues.

The above position’s gotten so bad for Black, the computer wants him to give up his queen to not get shortly checkmated. The top engine line goes 12…Qb8 13.Nd6+ Qxd6!

Clearly, 11…h6 was a bit of a mistake. The best move was actually 11…a6, which stops all the b5-nonsense forever, and only after 12.Rc1 h6 is the offending g5-bishop kicked out. Now we play 13.Bd2, with the same ideas as mentioned before.

<iframe width=”600″ height=”371″ src=”https://lichess.org/study/embed/C3h75Q9f/qCdmoOtT#1″ frameborder=0></iframe>

Against 5…Qb6, we’ve learned an interesting gambit line where White keeps up strong positional pressure that often leads to mating attacks. And that wraps up all our theory. 

Conclusion

In the Advance French, Black has three main theoretical options, 5…Nge7, 5…Bd7 and 5…Qb6. We play similarly against all three options, so hopefully all the chess notation didn’t bog down your mind too much. 

In part 3, we’ll look at some model games involving our theory and key ideas. There’s more ground to cover, so keep your ear to the… Chess In The Library website.

Introduction

In his book Dynamic Chess Strategy, GM Mihai Suba writes about the Hedgehog structure, a compact, defensive opening setup for Black that gained popularity in the 80s. Playing the Hedgehog seems a passive endeavor, as you allow White to build up acres of space and maneuver his pieces to perfection. However, as Suba recounts, by definition, perfection has one fatal flaw: it cannot be improved.

So I feel, learning openings, we shouldn’t chase this perfection (remembering every line, following every engine suggestion) but, rather something that’s practically powerful, and prickly like a hedgehog. With this thought I chose the model games for us to learn the Advance French.

The huge drawback in studying Grandmaster games, correspondence games, or (even) engine games, is that you cannot substantially improve on their play as an amateur nerd. To me, applying learned theory to improve the ideas of model games is the most instructive aspect. Today, I only picked online rapid games, and if my blunderfests are anything to go by, be sure we’ll unearth errors from both sides along the way.

At the end, I’ll also suggest an overall method to continue your study of the Advance French, which will hopefully help as you get stronger and outgrow my unseasoned ideas.

Model Game #1

Our first game was an online rapid battle between an international master and strong club player. With a ~400 point gap, this was a lopsided contest from the beginning, made even more uneven after the second player opened 1.e4 e6 instead of 1…e5. Unfortunately, any hopes of the latter player to scalp a win were pricked by our repertoire’s lines.

This game is a good illustration of our typical plans after exchanging on f5: knight maneuver to f4, sliding the king to f1, the rook lift Rh3-g3. Black also deserves credit for bringing up interesting ideas like exchanging off the c3-knight and walking the king to long castle. What we learned:

• Grabbing kingside space with h-pawn pushes and piece maneuvers often makes it disadvantageous for Black to castle short.
• Trading off the c3-knight is often good strategy for Black, since the knight is quite strong on f4, even though it strengthens White’s center.
• Patience, methodically preventing counterplay, and greedily controlling both flanks of the board can create the sort of positional dominance that sets up a material-winning tactical shot.
• When the center is closed enough, the kings can genuinely do whatever they want.

Model Game #2

Though it’s sometimes difficult to count on 10-minute rapid players (15+10 will forever have my heart), these unnamed Lichess warriors were tapped in. They followed 13 moves of our theory including the modern shot 12.b4!?. The game swung wildly back and forth before (spoiler…) White emerged triumphant through my favorite winning method, flagging. A prickly finish for Black whose clock hit zero in a drawn position.

This game is an almost-ideal demonstration of gambiteering: drop a pawn for some open lines, launch some pieces towards the opponent king, randomly sacrifice the exchange for a bit of fun, and emerge winning into the middlegame because your sacrifice was actually the best continuation, as it always is. Here’s what we learned:

• Keep your pieces as active as possible after gambiting a pawn.
• The dynamic advantage afforded by a gambit often retains influence deep into the middlegame, so don’t slow down.
• When many of your pieces are active, ensure you calculate deeper into lines and take every piece into account. 

Model Game #3

The protagonist of our third game is a mystery, the pseudonym a thorn sticking into any nosy Advance French enthusiasts. We only know he engages in Only Rapid Training and is fairly booked up. The second player sidesteps our immediate theoretical trap, but ultimately crumbled under White’s long-term pressure. No shame losing to a (probable) undercover super GM 🙂

White showed some excellent positional ideas, especially prophylaxis like 20.b3 restricting Black’s piece movements. Instructively, the first player quickly switched from slow positional grinding to full-on attack when the tactical break e6 presented itself. Here’s what we learned from that game:

• Don’t be hasty to commit to the pawn advance b2-b4, even to access a knight outpost on c5. Each pawn advance leaves behind potential weaknesses, which are magnified by Black’s light squared pawn structure in the Advance.
• Don’t be afraid to retreat your pieces to the first rank (Bb1, Bf1, etc) if it improves overall piece coordination.
• Moves like …g6 are pawn hooks which can be exploited by h2-h4-h5 to create weaknesses in Black’s kingside.
• Look for tactical shots as the end node of positional domination.
• Rapid is definitely the most tuff online time control, especially for improving tournament play.

Where to Go From Here

Thanks for reading my blogs on the Advance French! To wrap up, I should note that reading blogs is no way to learn the Advance French.

Once you understand the theory and ideas behind an opening, maybe even put together a repertoire PGN, you can jump straight into testing it out in real games. Make sure to play rated games at your level to properly stress-test your conceptual understanding. As you play dozens of games, and lose dozens of games, you can expand your repertoire and knowledge with the ideas you analyze from your own play. That way, you get the perfect repertoire carved over time into your own style, fit perfectly to the types of moves you see in typical play.

I should add that another place you should go from here is one of CITL’s upcoming tournaments 🙂 Once again, thanks for reading!

Written by Ryan Yao

Game Analysis

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Be7 6. Nxf6+ Bxf6 7. Bxf6 Qxf6 8. Nf3 O-O

The position here is very safe for both players. Black has already castled, but the queenside pieces are relatively inactive. One classical idea here for Black is to push b6 and then Bb7 in order to bring the light-square bishop to life. We will see that later in the game. White, on the other hand, has a great centre and fairly active pieces. The player can place its bishop on the d3 square to attack Black’s kingside.

9. Bd3 c5 10. O-O cxd4 11. Nxd4 Rd8 12. Nf3

Here, Black challenges White’s centre with the move c5, which is crucial to prevent White from consolidating its spatial advantages. Note that 11… Qxd4 is a blunder because Bxh7+!! simply wins a queen for White.

12… b6! 13. b3 Bb7

Black starts to execute the plan. The light-square bishop effectively controls the h1-a8 diagonal. 

4. Nd2 Na6 15. Qh5

Here, Black has two choices to defend the h7 pawn, namely h6 and g6, but one is better than the other.

15… g6!

This is a clever positional play. In most cases, it is not advisable to play g6 if Black does not have a bishop on g7. This is due to the fact that the h6 and f6 squares are left undefended, which may become potential outposts for White’s knights. Additionally, Qh6 or Qf6 would also be scary, especially when White has a dark-square bishop. However, things are different in this particular position. The dark-square bishops are traded, meaning that the queen can hardly pose any threat to Black’s king by herself. It is also nearly impossible for White to maneuver its knight back to kingside, as e4 and f3 squares are controlled by Black’s bishop. More importantly, the move g6 greatly restricts White’s light-square bishop, as it has nothing to attack.

16. Qe2 Nc5 17. Ne4 Qd4 18. Nxc5 Qxc5

Black has a very good position to play with very active pieces.

19. c4?

This is a positional mistake played by White. A much stronger move would be 19. Be4! to trade off Black’s active bishop, thereby creating a decent position for White. 

19… Rd4! 20. Rad1 Rad8

Black’s rook on d4 prevents White from trading bishops in the future. Black has a great initiative here: the doubled rooks control the d-file, and the bishop targets the vulnerable g2 pawn. White has to play very carefully to prevent losing the game immediately.

21. Bc2 Qg5 22. f4 Qc5 23. Qf2??

White makes a blunder under tremendous pressure. It is the moment when strategic play turns into a tactical one; Black can now use the accumulated positional advantages to attack.

23… Rd2!!

The queen on f2 is pinned, so White cannot capture the “free” rook on d2. If White captures the queen, the king’s castle will be destroyed by the rook and the bishop, as Rxg2+ would be decisive.

24. Qxc5 Rxg2+!! 25. Kh1 Rxc2+ 26. Kg1 Rg2+ 27. Kh1 Rg4+ 28. Qd5 exd5 0-1

Summary

A key takeaway from this game is restricting your opponents’ pieces and trading off their powerful pieces whenever possible. For example, the move g6 essentially “kills” White’s bishop in the middle game, and the knight trade prevents White from conquering the weaknesses in front of Black’s king. A major positional mistake made by White is not trying to trade Black’s aggressive bishop off the board, which eventually results in the loss.

Written by Ryan Yao

Game Analysis

1. d4 c6 2. Bf4 d5 3. e3 Bf5

This is a very common response from Black when facing the London System. The move Bf5 is very reasonable: it allows Black to develop the light-square bishop before playing e6, which liberates a usually inactive piece in such positions. In fact, Black will have a very successful opening if White plays 4. Bd3?! to trade off the bishop, as the position will be very symmetrical, and thereby equal, after Black playing e6 and Bd6.

4. c4!

This move is a very accurate response. White has to maintain an unbalanced position to keep the advantage, so continuing to build the conventional London structure will be unhelpful. Additionally, c4 allows White to develop an attack on Black’s queenside, particularly on the weak b7 pawn (which should be defended by the light-square bishop, which has moved to the f5 square). 

4… Qb6 5. Qb3 e6 6. c5! Qxb3 7. axb3 Nd7

White has a great initiative here. The move 6.c5! forces the queen trade, but more importantly, opens up the a-file for future attack. The b-file double pawns are also powerful: White can push them all across the board to destroy Black’s queenside defence. Moreover, the deadly f4 dark-square bishop tightly controls the b8-h2 diagonal, which further supports White’s action in the queenside.

8. b4 f6 9. Nf3 g5 10. Bg3 a6 11. b5!?

The move 11. b5!? follows the queenside-pawn-storm plan, but it may be a little bit premature. Black has a forced sequence of moves (11… cxb5 12.Bxb5 Bxb1 13. Bxd7+ Kxd7 14. Rxb1), which trades many pieces off the board and reduces White’s queenside pressure. A better move here would be 11. Nc3 to prepare for playing b5 next.

11… Bxb1? 12. bxc6! bxc6 13. Rxb1

11… Bxb1 is a significant positional mistake. It allows White to play bxc6 to create an isolated pawn in the a-file, as well as a vulnerable c6 pawn that is prone to White’s aggression.

13… h5 14. h3 h4 15. Bh2 Be7 16. Ra1 a5 17. b4

White is winning right now. The a5 pawn is under tremendous pressure, and the even more horrifying move b5 is on its way. Black’s pieces have little mobility, and White’s highly active pieces and the crushing pawn storm has almost manifested the victory.

17… Bd8 18. b5 Ne7

This is the moment when White can turn the positional advantage into a material advantage [it must be pointed out, however, that the positional move b6 will still be effective, but a tactic will end the game much sooner]. Can you find it? (Hint: the tactic is very “quiet”)

19. bxc6! Nxc6 20. Bb5! Rc8 21. Ba6! Rc7 22. Bxc7

White wins an exchange with this quiet, yet fabulous, tactic. Although the game is not finished, it is clear that White can easily take the victory from here.

Summary

For White, it is always important to maintain an unbalanced position, especially in the opening; if not, the game will soon become even, which is very undesirable for White. Additionally, White’s queenside action is exemplary. By opening the a-file, activating pieces and steadily pushing up pawns, White successfully compresses Black’s space.

Full Game PGN

1. d4 c6 2. Bf4 d5 3. e3 Bf5 4. c4 Qb6 5. Qb3 e6 6. c5 Qxb3 7. axb3 Nd7 8. b4 f6 9. Nf3 g5 10. Bg3 a6 11. b5 Bxb1 12. bxc6 bxc6 13. Rxb1 h5 14. h3 h4 15. Bh2 Be7 16. Ra1 a5 17. b4 Bd8 18. b5 Ne7 19. bxc6 Nxc6 20. Bb5 Rc8 21. Ba6 Rc7 22. Bxc7 Bxc7 23. O-O Ke7 24. Rfb1 Nb4 25. Bb5 Rb8 26. Bxd7 Kxd7 27. Ra4 Kc6 28. Nd2 Rg8 29. Nb3 Kb5 30. Ra3 g4 31. hxg4 Rxg4 32. c6 a4 33. Nc5 1-0