French defence[ edit ]
ECO: C00
theme No: 647
title: French defence
notation: 1. e4 e6
board: show
The French Defence is an opening in chess. It is characterised by the opening moves 1. e4 e6 (see algebraic notation) and in the vast majority of cases this is followed up with 2. d4 d5, giving the following position:

The defence has a reputation for solidity and resilience, though it can result in a somewhat cramped game for Black in the early stages. Black often gains counter-attacking possibilities on the queen-side while White tends to concentrate on the king-side.

The defence is named after a match played by correspondence between the cities of London and Paris in 1834 (although earlier examples of games with the opening do exist). It has since become one of the most popular defences to 1. e4. Players including Viktor Korchnoi, Wolfgang Uhlmann and Nigel Short have been particularly fond of it. More recently, the defence has featured strongly in the opening repertoire of Evgeny Bareev and Teimour Radjabov (who used it to defeat Garry Kasparov in early 2003, thus becoming the first player who was born since Kasparov took the world championship in 1985 to beat him).


categories: theme library | French defence
article No 494 / last change on 2005-06-28, 03:26pm

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This article is based on the article French defence from the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia and stands under the GNU-Licence for free documentation. In the Wikipedia a list of the authors is available.

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