French v Caro debate

I've been looking and playing some french (rubinstein) and caro games as black on this site and Chess.com but unsure if it suites or like them. I tend to go for a QGD against 1 d4 so both kind of marry with this. Any thoughts/ideas on these openings, and a defense against the advance/exchange variations?
Or should I look for another opening

if you like it, play it.

if you don't like it, don't play it.

if you don't like it, but can't avoid it, study it.

Originally posted by wormwood
if you like it, play it.

if you don't like it, don't play it.

if you don't like it, but can't avoid it, study it.

Fair enough but I have found some positions I didn't like because I didn't understand them. Then after some work, I understood them better and got to like them more.

But I also see your point. It's easier to study/play those lines that interest us. This should play a big part.

The Caro is very positional, solid, but a bit passive. The French is a tricky opening to play against. Do you want to face a winawer, The Alekhine-Chatard Attack etc?

The Slav pawn structure has stuff common to the Caro also.

p.s. you could just play the Scando and save yourself a bit of theory 😉

Originally posted by Varenka
Fair enough but I have found some positions I didn't like because I didn't understand them. Then after some work, I understood them better and got to like them more.

kinda what was my hidden agenda behind advice #3.

Originally posted by wormwood
kinda what was my hidden agenda behind advice #3.

Sure, but you said if it couldn't be avoided. I've got to like positions that could have been avoided.

Originally posted by wormwood


if you don't like it, but can't avoid it, study it.

So true.

Originally posted by plopzilla
The Caro is very positional, solid, but a bit passive. The French is a tricky opening to play against. Do you want to face a winawer, The Alekhine-Chatard Attack etc?

The Slav pawn structure has stuff common to the Caro also.

p.s. you could just play the Scando and save yourself a bit of theory 😉

Just a side note, but I had no idea that the Scandinavian and Alekhine's Defense were such close sister openings until a friend of mine brought his Scandinavian book to the club and I thumbed through it.

A whole slew of middlegame positions were such that, if I saw them on a board, I would have assumed they began with 1. e4 Nf6.

Sometimes our desire to put a name on a chess position limits our perception rather than clarifying it.