Originally posted by thadeusmanoh indeed...
Is there any good stuff in the exchange french for black.
There's plenty of people who will tell you that the Exchange French is always dull but that's not true. I've written about it a bunch of times on our club bog
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/search?q=Interesting+French+exchange
in particular ...
a couple of Alekhine games with an early ... Qh4
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2008/09/interesting-french-exchange-vi.html
a pair of Korchnoi's wins
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2008/09/interesting-french-exchange-vi.html
the famous tal-Korchnoi game that Black nearly won
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2008/02/interesting-french-exchange-iii.html
and if all else fails you can always try castling queenside and hacking away to your heart's content
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2007/12/interesting-french-exchange-ii.html
Short's famous win against Gurevich - always worth knowing for inspiration
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/2007/11/jbs-favourite-moves-ii.html
It's my ambition to be the world's foremost authority on the Exchange French!
J
Originally posted by TyrannosauruschexNot necessarily true.
As long as you castle on the opposite side to your opponent it will be quite an exciting game.
...0-0-0 is definitely a good option for injecting some life into the position but it's also possible to get good games with ... 0-0 too
see for example Tal-Korchnoi and Gurevich-Short above.
As long as Black avoids trading off all of the heavy pieces on the open e-file, his chances of winning are probably as good as White's. And if you avoid those exchanges (and they're relatively easy to avoid), the chances of a decisive outcome is about the same as with any other variation of the French Defense. On a large two-million-game database I did some research on, BLACK actually had a plus score in the Exchange French!