Talk:French Defence

message: Re: "Garry Kasparov experimented with it in the early 1990s, gaining a widely publicized victory over Nigel Short in 1991" on the Exchange variation. I have checked two on-line databases which give this game as a draw, ending in a black piece sac that secured a perpetual and thus spoilt Kasparov's almost total domination of the game, and virtual refutation of the 4. Nf3 Bg4 line of the Exchange (which otherwise score very well for black.) If I recall correctly from an old Informator I know longer have, this was from Tilburg 1991 and Kasparov then also used the Exchange to defeat Korchnoi in the same tournament, in a ...c5-c4 line for black. Using it twice in the same tournament probably got the publicity the author of this article is thinking; either that or both databases are wrong. Kasparov also uses this variation in simultaneous displays, incidentally. Anyway: it would be nice if someone with a good off-line database like Chessbase could confirm/clarify/change the 1991 reference. Tommy-Chivs 01:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct - I have removed the reference. youngvalter 06:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I'm not sure it's entirely accurate to say Kasparov 'experimented' with the Exchange though. The reality was Kortchnoi, Salov and Short all played assymetric responses to the French Exchange - when weaker players tried to draw against them using it. Kasparov worked out what was wrong with these assymetric choices as a part of his preparation. The Salov Nc6, Bd6 plan can be met by Bb5 w c4; this results in a long forced sequence whereby white gets marginally better queenside pawns. The Short 4...Bg4 gets hit by 5.h3 Bh5 6.Qe2+ (threat Qb5+), forcing therefore 6...Qe7: Now after g4, black's kingside development is congested; white has a slight to clear plus as a result. V the Kortchnoi plan of c5, white's rapid development obliged c5-c4, when the d5 pawn is subject to long term-attack.
In short - Kasparov's 2.5-.5 from these three games (which should have been 3-0!) was the result of 'hit and run' preparation. Not experimentation.Tommy-Chivs 13:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kasparov win? 

message: Hi Gavin, welcome to WP.  Are there any references to the "Kingston Defence"?  I couldn't find anything in google. I see that you authored the now out of print "Crack the French: How To Play the Kingston Defence", ISBN 095141030X.  I see that Amazon.co.uk has it. Quale 17:25, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kingston Defence? 

message: I'm Yosef and I have a comment:
"
In the diagrammed position, Black most frequently plays 6...Ne7. (The main alternative is 6...Qc7, which can simply transpose to main lines after 7.Qg4 Qc7
"
It seems wrong, Qc7 appears twicwice. In any case, I failed to understand the move sequence.
Good day.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.138.177.242 (talk) 10:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it should have said 7.Qg4 Ne7. Thanks for pointing that out; I've made the change.Pawnkingthree (talk) 11:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: re. Winawer 

message: According to the list, C00 is "1. e4 e6 without 2. d4" but there is no code for "1. e4 e6 2. d4 without 2... d5". Should C00 be revised to read "1. e4 e6 without 2. d4 d5" or is the latter more correctly included in one of the other codes? 19:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ECO codes 

message: What is referred to in this article as the Armenian Variation is also known as the Khalifman Line of the Winawer Variation.  It is named after contemporary Russian grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion Alexander Khalifman.  Khalifman has used this line successfully in numerous modern grandmaster games, greatly repopularizing a dormant line. The proper name for an opening or defense variation or line is not necessarily its oldest.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by AaronCBurke (talk • contribs) 22:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There are no "proper names" of chess openings, as there's no authority with the power to decide them officially. 91.107.151.245 (talk) 13:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Armenian Variation/ Khalifman line 

message: Someone added a paragraph on the so-called Barmann Variation under "Early deviations for Black". I moved it to "Early deviations for White" since it concerns an unusual White second move (Bb5) and tidied up the paragraph (move numbers instead of separating the moves with commas, tried to avoid the implication that the line given is the only possible play after 2. Bb5, removed the final suggested moves 7... Bc6 8. Na4? which is bad because of 8... Bxb5). Still, I haven't heard of this variation before. Is it sufficiently notable to merit inclusion? 
Another variation that perhaps deserves coverage is the Labourdonnais, 2. f4. Almost certainly more respectable than the Barmann, but again, I'm not sure how truly notable it is. 91.107.151.245 (talk) 13:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Bird used to play this. ChessGames.com shows three games by him (all wins) - see games 5-7. Incidentally, 2...Qg5 forces 3.Bf1, whereupon Black can repeat with 3...Qd8 if he wants, or play 3...d5 4.d4 Qd8, reaching the standard French position with two extra moves for each side. ChessGames.com shows 5 games with 2.Bb5 out of 28,209 Frenches. Looks non-notable to me too. Krakatoa (talk) 17:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, 2...Qg5 looks good too, thanks for the tip Krakatoa! For what it's worth I think White can try to argue that 3.Nc3 Qxg2 4.Qf3 Qxg3 5.Nxf3 gives her compensation, but maybe Black can go for a Hippo setup to catch up in development. Chi Sigma (talk) 11:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting idea, but I don't think White has any real compensation with the queens off the board. I think 5...c6 and 6...d5 is not bad, but I like your hippo idea (starting with, say, 5...a6, ...b5, ...Bb7, ...d6, ...Nd7) better. Black has an extra pawn and a super-solid position with no weaknesses. Krakatoa (talk) 22:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Barmann Variation, Labourdonnais 

message: Someone moved the "general themes" section much further down the page and retitled it "Advance general themes", no doubt simply because the initial diagram of the pawn structure has a White pawn on e5. This is a case of being too literal. The Advance is pawn to e5 on the third move; the pawn reaching e5 at some stage is typical of all French variations except the Exchange, so the diagram and section were correct as they stood. Besides, this section was a very good overall discussion and very informative to readers who might otherwise be bewildered by the array of different variations; if it had been meant to be a section solely on the Advance, there is no way one variation, and not an especially important one at that, would merit such a large share of the page. I've put this back where it belongs now, hope it stays there. 91.107.182.206 (talk) 12:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "General themes" section 

message: At the end of this section, there is "Black may continue 7...Nf5 to attack d4 or 7...Ng6 followed by ...f6 to attack e5.", however, at no point in the previous text is there mention of ..Ne7.  Perhaps Bd7 should be Ne7 OR this is in reference to a line where white plays something other than a3 and Black plays 6..Ne7 instead of 6..f6  PeskyGnat (talk) 15:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advance Variation 

message: That huge list of every possible sequence of moves has got to go. It clutters things up (it accounts for more than half the article's length!) and adds nothing of value. I tried deleting it before but got reverted -- I suppose Wikipedia is automatically suspicious of large deletions. 91.105.31.176 (talk) 20:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, June 18, 2010 - the removal of such a large amount of stuff by an anon IP address looks like vandalism to the bot.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Seconded.  The ECO classification list belongs somewhere else, perhaps in the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings article.  --173.76.64.188 (talk) 00:49, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree, and took it out.  I preserved it below. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Variations list 

message: The above mentioned line doesn't look very promising for white:
4.e5 c5 5.a3 Ba5 6.b4 cxb4 7.Qg4
Is this really theory?
--KommX (talk) 20:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Armenian Variation in the sidelines of Winawer correct? 

message: It's not mentioned in any opening manual as as far as I know but after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.ed Qxd5 has been played a lot on the Internet Chess Club. It doesn't seem have an obvious refutation and is, I believe, known as the London or Brixton Defence by it's fans. SmokeyTheCat 16:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  An Early Alternative in the Exchange Variation 

message: I noticed these recent revisions by Cobblet removing several "non-notable variations." Is there a standard for chess opening notability presented somewhere? An ECO classification? There are many articles which violate that. How commonly it is played? Amar Opening and Anderssen's Opening are just the first two in the openings category which stick out in violation of that criterion. A certain move number of variation? Seems there are a number of Sicilian et al. articles which talk about variations quite further into the game. Or is it completely subjective? There are indeed several I've never heard of or seen played that were removed, but Marshall Gambit even linked to its own Wikipedia page (well, a Wikipedia page anyway) and the 4 ...Qd5 line of the Rubinstein was even accompanied by a reference. I'll hold off adding anything back in because I simply don't know what the standard is. --Rhododendrites (talk) 15:23, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: There isn't a standard but I'd like to write one - I just returned to the project after a long hiatus. I do intend to merge articles like Amar Opening into Irregular Defences at some point. In my opinion, notability should be measured by number of master-level games played in the variation and the amount of analysis published on it. The Katalymov Variation (i.e. 4...Qxd5 in the Rubinstein) is a borderline case: feel free to add it back in, but keep in mind it's only the fifth most popular move in that position, and the article makes no mention of the more common moves 4...Nf6 and 4...Be7. Most lines in the Secrets of Opening Surprises series are chosen specifically because they're rare - some have seen more action and become notable as a result, but many have not. Marshall Gambit links to a disambiguation page. Cobblet (talk) 18:35, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Non-notable" lines 

message: , plz stop reverting & discuss here. (Your add was misplaced, for starters. The rest can be subject to editing, but plz stop reverting.) --IHTS (talk) 18:51, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok explain.Michael james campbell (talk) 19:04, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It was misplaced. I've added your content under Advance Variation section. The blunder-line you wanted to focus on, is so basic it was hard to find in any book! (I did manage to find it in Psakhis, The Complete French, 1992, p. 30.) The Milner-Barry Gambit wasn't represented in the article previously (now it is), it is a good add. It could be enhanced a little, but a diagram on the blunder line wasn't/isn't warranted (WP:UNDUE) (again, could hardly find it, not in ECOs or a dozen books on the French, finally found it in the Psakhis). Ok? --IHTS (talk) 20:03, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Milner-Barry Gambit 

message: This is a large block of text with no references. Is this commonly accepted in a chess article? Elsewhere, this would be tagged with "doesn't cite any sources". Dhalamh (talk) 13:14, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  No citations in General Themes Section 

message: "Black has several ways to combat this setup: 3...c5 followed by ...Nc6, ...Bd6, ...Nf6 or ...Nge7 and ...0-0 is common" ... this is confusing.  You have gone straight to Black's third move without specifying his second or White's third.  For instance I have played 2...c5 with the idea of ...Nc6, ...Nf6, and ...Be7, deferring to move the d-pawn until White has decided between Nc3 and Nbd2.  Also, with the common move order 2...d5 3.Nd2 c5 4. Nf3, Black might follow with ...Nf6 and ...Be7, or (less commonly) with ...Bd6 and ...Nge7, but these cannot be combined, e.g. ...Nf6 and ...Bd6 together will lead to trouble.  Bruce leverett (talk) 05:21, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Go ahead and edit, I'm not particularly expert on the KIA. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 10:39, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  King's Indian Attack