Beating the Exchange French.

After 3. ... Qxd5 you have made it harder on yourself.
It is easier to play for a win from an equal position than an inferior one !!!

(I have actually played the queen capture in blitz myself.)

You have a Scandinavian yes but with a horrible queen's bishop.

The exchange French is no guaranteed draw below master level.

Black can always create winning chances.

One example is the "opposite knight" approach, as I call it.

If white plays Nf3, black puts his knight on e7.
If white plays Ne2, black puts his knight on f6.
You can also castle on opposite sides.
The Watson book has some nice ways to imbalance the position.

If you really want to take some chances for the win, try an early c5 in the regular exchange.

I have seen 3. ... Qxd5 in at least two books.

I think by Samarian book covers it, as does my Pedersen book.

Hold on a second, and I will look it up.

Let's have a game then, you as white and i'll play ...Qxd5 in the exchange French.

Originally posted by chesstony82
Let's have a game then, you as white and i'll play ...Qxd5 in the exchange French.

Sorry, I am trying to reduce my load.
Since I have been back, I have started maybe 10 games.
Earlier this week, I was up to 54 just from old tournaments popping up.

The database I have says that exd5 has a winning percentage for white of 28% and a winning percentage of 35% as black

Qxd5 has a winning percentage of 35% for white and 37% winning for black.

With this being said, you are giving yourself 2% more chance to win while whites chances of winning are increased by 7%. only 280 games were played Qxd5 and 1280 played it with exd5. Typically grandmasters play one move more than the other for winning chances in my opinion.

My French Book by Pedersen gives this move order.

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Qd5 5.Nc3 Bb4 (transposing)

"This offers white good chances of an advantage."

6.Nf3 (5.Nf3) is the main move.

6.Qg4 would run into Nc6 7.Nf3 Nge7 8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 e5 !

After 6.Nf3 6. ... Ne4 and 6. ... b6 are examined with a slight edge going to white.

Originally posted by kmac27
The database I have says that exd5 has a winning percentage for white of 28% and a winning percentage of 35% as black

Qxd5 has a winning percentage of 35% for white and 37% winning for black.

With this being said, you are giving yourself 2% more chance to win while whites chances of winning are increased by 7%. only 280 games were played Qxd5 and 1280 ...[text shortened]... xd5. Typically grandmasters play one move more than the other for winning chances in my opinion.

Have you seen the past posts about database percentages?
I seem to remember Greenpawn showing a game from the girls under 12 championship that was played horribly.
It was in the database though, so it affected the percentages.

Just be careful. 🙂

Hi,
You lot still looking at this duff line.

I don't know anything about 5.Qg4 it just popped into my skull
when I saw 4...Bb5.

It would be a laugh to play OTB though.

Can still mix it up after 5...Nc6

(I can always mix it up )

5....Nc6 6.Bb5!? Qxb5 7.Qxg7



Any hits the d-pawn or the c3 Knight then White will develop
his g1 Knight on e2.

What a mess - love it.

(If 5...Kf8 what about 6.Kd1! did you consider that?).

I'm off to the pub soon will have IM's and FM's looking at this,
(If I don't come up with some cuckoo position for us to look at
then one of them will show us an iendgame study.....😴)

And i won't post what we find becaue it's nearly a game in progress.

(we must be bordering on an illegal thread, is there not something
about '...a position that is likely to appear' mentioned in TOS? - but
then surley any opening discussion will be illegal?).

Hopefullly it's on a database somewhere and you can say you followed that.
Just don't tell Russ about this thread.

(your future opponents might be looking at this BTW).

Anyway enough of this nonsense.

The question you have to ask yourself is would you play 3....e6
in the Scandinavain after 3.d4



Because that is the position you are looking at.

Finally In passing:

Agree Karpov's French is worth a look, as is Korchnoi's but if you
want to see someone who was born to play the French.

Then look at the games of Wolfgang Uhlmann
Some of them are masterpieces. (and I don't throw that word around).

Quote from,Wikipedia.

Uhlmann is acknowledged as one of the world's leading experts on
the French Defence, having refined and improved many of its
variations and authored books on the opening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Uhlmann

Edits: Just saw last post.
Yeah be careful about databases, some are full of junk - the thinking
is if their game is on the DB they will buy it. (I did).

So these 4 million DB's are full of u-8 girls etc etc.
You can get some awful lop-sided data.

The Informator DB is the best one. All the games from 1-93
is the one I have. Only GM's IM's and FM's.

(Chess Base does not have a lot of the Informator games on it -
so you have to buy the two CD's).

I could fire up my DB and look at this opening but it's on my working computer.
(This thing just a bare lab top) and I'm off out.

I have been preaching Ulhmann for years. hehe

I even put some of his games in the Winawer Poisoned Pawn thread by sh76. 🙂

There is also a nice French Exchange in Chess For Tigers.

I think the ratio of 1280 games to 280 games simply describes that one is much better than the other. I do agree with your statement of being under 2000 and playing a game, a simple forced draw just doesn't happen that often. Someone screws up enough to lose usually.

Kapengut-Dvoretsky
Odessa 1972

Black played great, but alas the final result was a draw.

Draw in 27

Originally posted by kmac27
I think the ratio of 1280 games to 280 games simply describes that one is much better than the other. I do agree with your statement of being under 2000 and playing a game, a simple forced draw just doesn't happen that often. Someone screws up enough to lose usually.

Spot on.

Also you must consider that with these off beat openings it is
usually the weaker player playing them against a much stronger
player in an effort to put them off.

The guy will lose no matter what he plays so he tries a...Latvian
for example. So you add another loss to the Latvian stats.

After a while the stats build up.
You have all these number pointing to an opening that has a huge
negative score and draw the wrong conclusion,

Also any game lastiing more than 20 moves cannot really be the
fault of the opening.

I play a Latvian, I'm winning all through a game and mess up
the ending on move 86. Then it's another loss to the Latvian.

View these data base wins'draws/losses tables with a pinch of salt.

You have to cut out the chaff.

The solution is for you to look at an opening yourself.
Do you like the positions it throws up, could you play these positions?

If 2*yes then play it and ignore what everyone else says.

I play the exchange french almost always. And I don't do it to take my opponent out of book, but because i'm more comfortable with the position after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.c4.

Just because the position my be equal doesn't mean white has nothing to play for or is without good plans. I've had more bishop sacs (on h7) in this line than in any other opening i've played.

Plus, just like the chessmaster lectures taught us white can play against black's white bishop.

Since I'm not a grandmaster I don't feel compelled to play openings that give me small pluses, but rather openings where I'm better able to understand my plans and my opponents plans.

edit: greenpawn offers good advice above.

tony I sent you a message over at gameknot. I'm not sure if that was you, you didn't have any games over there completed.

Originally posted by paulbuchmanfromfics
Kapengut-Dvoretsky
Odessa 1972

Black played great, but alas the final result was a draw.

[pgn]

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Qd5 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Nf3 Nf6 7.Bd3 Ne4
8.O-O Nxc3 9.bxc3 Bxc3 10.Rb1 Nc6 11.Be3 Bd7 12.Bb5 a6 13.Bxc6 Bxc6
14.Qd3 Qa5
* [/pgn] Draw in 27

Dvoretsky is my hero. Loved his Endings book.

I like Nf3 better than Nc3. tony and I have a game going on through messages and I played Nf3 and played fairly well. The game isn't over yet. If he wants the game to be put in the forums its ok by me. I think i is a good example from the white side. Then again I'm not a GM ;-)