The French Defense

The French Defense is one of the fundamental openings and a common defensive strategy against white's first move 1.e4. This opening is characterized by the following opening moves: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5, white claims the center, while black challenges the e4-pawn. Based from this position, several continuations will be analyzed for both sides to deepen your knowledge. The major topics that we’re going to look at is of course the Advance Variation which is when white advances his pawn by playing 3.e5. We will also discuss white's option to capture black's d5 pawn, which is the so-called Exchange Variation. Other popular lines like the Steinitz Variation, the Burn Variation , the Winawer Variation, the Rubinstein Variation and the Tarrasch Variation will also be analyzed in detail. Discussing typical opening traps that can arise in the French Defense completes the course of the French Defense. If you like the sound of it and you want to add the French Defense to your repertoire, please join and let’s get ready to begin. This course is intended for all players, from beginners to advanced players with a FIDE rating of 1000-2000+ ELO. A complete set of PGNs of everything covered in this course can be downloaded and will help you to analyze it at your own pace and convenience.