Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The French Defense was Fischer's bête noire, too

So now we all know what to play against Eric until he solves his opening problem!  Seriously, it's common for 1.e4 players to have difficulties with certain semi-closed openings.  The extra tempo isn't as valuable as the specialist's knowledge that the player of the Black pieces often has.

Black to play


18...Rd5!? was a very creative Exchange sacrifice by Guo!

2 comments:

Frederick Rhine said...

The French has been annoying 1.e4 players since the Paris Chess Club used it to crack off the London Chess Club in 1836.

Frederick Rhine said...

Even the Chess God Paul Morphy couldn't find anything better against the French than the Exchange Variation. http://tinyurl.com/2axzuzo Fortunately for him, he was so far above the rest of the world that it was actually an effective weapon for him. It surprises me that the French wasn't played more in the 19th century, since theory has considered it sound since its inception. I think players thought it a bit unmanly not to play 1...e5.