Catalogue text:
The French Defence is one of the most popular chess openings amongst players of all levels. While it is a sound and resilient defence, it has also been favoured by great fighting players, such as Lasker, Botvinnik and Korchnoi. Current adherents include Short, Shirov, Morozevich and Khalifman.
By playing 3 Nc3, White confronts the French head-on. The upshot is often a ferocious battle as Black tries to destroy or damage White's central pawn phalanx. Some of the variations, such as the notorious Winawer Poisoned Pawn, are among the sharpest in opening theory. However, both sides have quieter, more positional, options at their disposal, so there is truly something for everyone in the Main Line French.
This book, the first of two volumes by Pedersen on the French, covers all lines after 3 Nc3, including the Winawer (Nimzowitsch), Classical (including the Steinitz), MacCutcheon and Guimard Variations. There is also a full discussion of 3...dxe4, a move that has found favour among those seeking to avoid theory.
Review(s):
Steffen Pedersen is a young Danish IM who has achieved two GM Norms. He has now written a number of opening books for Gambit and I have found them to be generally very good. This one is the first of two books covering the whole of the French Defence and it covers all the variations, after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3. The book has extensive verbal explanations of plans and strategies at appropriate stages in the text.
After a short introduction, the book is broken up into four parts:
- Part One: Rubinstein and Burn Variations (58 pages)
- Part Two: The Classical French (84 pages)
- Part Three: The Winawer (97 pages)
- Part Four: Odds and Ends (4 pages)
There is a four page index of variations at the end. The book doesn't analyse complete games, but gives analysis up to where the middlegame starts.
I have now looked at various books written by Pedersen and I have found them particularly useful to learn the plans of an opening as he takes the time and space to explain the plans and strategies in understandable terms, and does not just use symbolic annotation. The production of the book is of the high quality we have come to expect from Gambit with clear diagrams placed at relevant places throughout the text.
Highly Recommended
Thanks to Australian Chess Forum, Mr. Paul Dunn
