Introduction

For many chess players, Theory wears the costume of some kind of cartoon villain. Probably with a maniacal cackle, He steals our precious chess hours, reducing learning to memorization. But I don’t think it should be this way! Like theories in science – the theory of gravity, for example – they should be a basis for our opening improvement. Something to keep us grounded but still let us explore.

Now that we know some basic Advance French concepts, the theory is (ironically) where we’ll see them in action. As you read and follow along on a board, don’t commit everything to memory, but bring your magnifying glass to spot our key ideas. 

Let’s get off the ground!

Basic Theory

We’ve already learned the first few moves of the Advance French. We open with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5. The battle turns to the d4-pawn after 3…c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3. Nothing groundbreaking yet, but now Black is at a tabiya – a position with a few different theoretical routes. We’ll go over the three most common.

The Slick 5…Nge7

Recall the key idea of the d4-pawn battle. Black plays 5…Nge7 to maneuver the knight to f5, with the end goal of pressuring d4 as usual. But now you’ll learn how to hold your ground and stop this scheme forever. Just capture the knight on f5! That’s why we play 6.Bd3.

Black takes our pawn before playing the knight to f5: 6…cxd4 7.cxd4 Nf5. If Black forgets this move order and plays …Nf5 straightaway, dxc5 gives a comfortable position. See the diagram sideline.

See that 7…Nf5 here is nearly forced as the knight on e7 traps in its own bishop. It must move, and doesn’t have anywhere better to go – remember …Ng6 almost always runs into an emboldened h4!. As planned, we immediately assassinate this knight by playing 8.Bxf5 exf5. 

This trade gives Black the bishop pair. In return, we get rid of the strong knight and wreck Black’s pawn structure. As the dust settles, we just develop with 9.Nc3.

Black has to defend his d5-pawn from our Nc3-Qb3 plan, so he follows up with 9…Be6. It’s a very effective idea – we’re not getting that pawn anytime soon – but it leaves Black with a “tall-pawn” on e6. A tall-pawn is a rude nickname for a bishop so useless it may as well be a pawn. Make sure to unleash that obscenity on your opponents.

The line’s final move prepares the ground for the middlegame: 10.h4! 

A few ideas behind this: we obviously want to take space on the kingside, and do so in a way that isn’t significantly weakening. This pawn advance also stops the …h6-g5 plan for Black. Moreover, we unlock the surprising plan of Rh1-h3-g3. The rook lift pressures g7 – this hinders kingside castling and can tie down the f8-bishop to defense.

That’s the end of our theory. Later, we generally play the maneuver Ke1-f1-g1. The artificial castling safeguards our king while leaving us open to kingside rook lifts. We can play Nc3-e2-f4 to give this knight more influence over the game. Black usually castles queenside, but fret not because we can push our queenside pawns to attack over there too! And, too bad for us theory nerds, a chess game is played, albeit a chess game you have a ~60% chance of winning.

The Quiet 5…Bd7

Another option for Black in the earlier tabiya is the simple developing move 5…Bd7. Black gets his infamous prisoner, the French bishop, off its starting square, and prepares Rc8. As before, we continue natural development with 6.Bd3. 

Our dizzying development speed – we’re about to castle as Black hasn’t developed any kingside pieces – means this move hides a subtle threat. Black often continues with 6…Rc8, not understanding the gravity of our reply: 7.dxc5. 

First, with dxc5, we got rid of the constantly harassed d4-pawn. Also, after 7…Bxc5, we can just castle, 8.O-O, while defending our f2-pawn. The Black bishop is poorly placed on c5 and invites the space-reaping b2-b4 and a2-a4 advances. Lastly, though our e5-pawn loses some defense, our light squared bishop being actively developed to d3 (and not the usual e2) allows us to defend it with a rook/queen along the e-file.

Since we have a comfortable position there, Black may choose to miraculously rewind time to play 6…cxd4 instead – breaking our dxc5 utopia and spacetime causality. We’ll recapture this pawn, 7.cxd4. Black’s most natural response is 7…Qb6, pressuring the d4-pawn and exploiting our light squared bishop’s obstruction. This bishop must move, right?

Wrong! We’re just going to castle, and this gives up a pawn after 8.O-O Nxd4.

We’re playing a gambit! Instead of capturing the knight, which activates Black’s queen, we’ll continue developing with 9.Nbd2. Here, Black most commonly takes our knight, and though piece trades are bad for us gambiteers, 9…Nxf3 10.Nxf3 does open up the position a lot.

Black has many ideas now, the most precise of which is probably …Bb5, forcing a trade of the despised French bishop. But for most people, 10…Bc5 is more natural, to develop a piece that hasn’t moved before. It doesn’t seem like there’s much left in this position for us. But think back to a few paragraphs ago, when we saw a bishop which was misplaced on c5 because it allowed a certain queenside pawn advance.

If you found the move, congrats for so rapidly absorbing the barbaric spirit of this mini-repertoire. We’re sending one more pawn through the shredder to open even more lines: 11.b4!?!

The idea behind this is to open up the b-file for our queen’s rook. 11…Bxb4?! 12.Rb1 (pinning the bishop to the queen) Qa5 (getting out of the pin) 13.a3!. When the bombarded bishop gets out of the way, our rook will capture the b7-pawn, infiltrating deep into Black’s position. The rook on b7 can also tie the Black king down to the d7-bishop’s defense, preventing castling. Now just one pawn behind, our development and attacking avenues give us more than enough compensation.

Also, note that 13…Bxa3?? fails to 14.Ra1 winning the bishop. Not that opponents at our exceptional skill level would fall into that, right?

Anyway, Black has an alternative move we should consider way back on move nine. Though 9…Nxf3 is a very popular try, I think the down-to-earth 9…Nc6 line actually poses more problems for us.

We’re in a more closed position – not what we want.

Since Black didn’t take our f3-knight, our d2-knight is stuck in an awkward space, blocking in our bishop, which in turn blocks in the rook. So we’ll get this bumbling knight out of the way with 10.Nb3 where it eyes some key squares.

Black’s kingside pieces hesitantly emerge at last, starting after 10…Nge7. We continue developing too. Best is to get our bishop out with tempo: 11.Be3 hitting the Black queen, which retreats via 11…Qc7. See how …Bc5 wasn’t possible because of our b3-knight’s influence. 

Lining up the rook against this deserting queen, we largely complete our harmonious development, 12.Rc1. Finally, after 12…Ng6 we play a powerful knight advance with several ideas behind it: 13.Nc5!

That’s all the theory I expect you guys to remember, but to illustrate our position’s strength, here are some ways the game could go on: 

• 13…Be7 14.b4, strong space advantage and queenside pressure for us
• 13…Ngxe5 14.Nxe5 Qxe5 15.Nxb7, sound according to the engine, but this exposes Black’s position more, making it hard to defend in practice – we have a 65% winrate in the amateur database
• 13…Bxc5 14.Bxc5 Ngxe5 15.Nxe5 Qxe5 16.Re1 where Black can’t castle, we have the bishop pair, better-placed pieces and long-term positional pressure that does compensate for 2-3 whole pawns

Black is going through some rough ground. Our brutish approach towards 5…Bd7 (and perhaps the French in general!) is satisfyingly opposite to what the Black player expects after playing such a quiet move. So aside from being sound and tricky, these lines give a psychological advantage too.

The Rebellious 5…Qb6

Black’s most popular fifth move, especially at amateur level. It’s so mind-numblingly common, in fact, that sometimes we gloss over its sheer rebelliousness. In what other mainline does one bring out their queen as the second piece developed, as early as move five, to a fairly advanced square, breaking all your chess teacher’s rules? (Don’t answer that, there’s definitely a few, but my mind’s gone blank)

Black’s 5…Qb6 attacks our d4-pawn, so we’ll carefully not defend it with 6.Bd3. This follows our usual development scheme, the bishop a sniper behind the pawn chain’s wall. But we do give up a pawn (is the wall crumbling?) after 6…cxd4. We commit to the bit by castling: 7.O-O.

We’re playing a gambit, but don’t worry, we’re on solid theoretical ground. Black can choose not to take our pawn here. 7…Bd7 8.cxd4 transposes to the main line of the previous section.

But 7…dxc3 8.Nxc3 and the real fun starts; only for us, though. 

It’s often said (by miserable materialistic grinders) that a pawn is a pawn. But sometimes active pieces, rapid development, and king safety can be pawns too. We’re going to use these fancy pawns to attack Black’s king. 

Soon, Be3 will come with tempo, and we can actively place our rooks on c1 and e1. Our d3-bishop can initiate Greek gift sacrifices, dying with honor. The headstrong e5-pawn controls d6 and f6. We get ideas of Bg5 (potential knight pins) and Nb5 (hopping into d6).

One move Black can play, preventing the latter idea, is 8…a6. A good response is always 9.Be3, developing actively with tempo. Here, our bishop importantly controls the c5- and b6-squares. Black’s most popular retreat is 9…Qc7, keeping the queen a bit involved, and eying our e5-pawn. 

Many moves are fine here, but I prefer 10.Na4.

Taking on e5 here is remarkably common and remarkably horrible. After 10…Nxe5 11.Nxe5 Qxe5 12.Nb6 Rb8 13.Qa4+ is crushing because the Black king is forced to move. Black loses castling rights and strands his king centrally where it’ll be tormented for many moves to come.

Less intuitive is 10…Nge7, calmly developing, realising that Nb6 isn’t a huge threat because the rook can just move. This is Black’s best approach. We continue with 11.Rc1, a common idea to line up the rook against the enemy queen, setting up future pin threats. Black usually continues developing with 11…Ng6, opening up the bishop and also hitting our e5-pawn. To defend the e5-pawn, we’ll first clear our bishop out of the way with tempo (12.Bb6! Qb8) and then guard it with the rook: 13.Re1.

A much better try for Black is 8…Bd7. Black doesn’t create any unnecessary weaknesses, develops the bishop and prepares to activate the queenside rook. Again we play 9.Be3, but here Black’s best move is fully retreating with 9…Qd8. Without an early …a6, a queen on c7 would be too weak to future Nb5 ideas.

(Note that 9…d4, a clever-looking fork, fails to 10.Nxd4 Nxd4 11.Qg4 picking the piece back up with advantage.)

We’ll continue with 10.Re1, developing the rook and preparing to defend the e5-pawn. To do that, we have to move our e3-bishop out of the way. One option is Bf4, but the overprotection is less effective when Black likely won’t play the f6-break. The bishop can also be attacked by Ne7-Ng6. 

Better is the very rare idea of Bd2!. This defends the c3-knight. Black would love to play Bb4 and Bxc3, getting development and mitigating his space disadvantage through trades. So putting the bishop on d2 prevents this idea. If …Bxc3, we’d take back and get a nifty c3-bishop patrolling d4 and e5.

But after 10…Nge7, we have an even better place to move this bishop, with the very tricky 11.Bg5!. The main point is that the most intuitive and common move, even in high-level slow games, is 11…h6??, which loses on the spot!! 12.Nb5! offers a bishop in exchange for a checkmate… and Black faces serious material loss and king safety issues.

The above position’s gotten so bad for Black, the computer wants him to give up his queen to not get shortly checkmated. The top engine line goes 12…Qb8 13.Nd6+ Qxd6!

Clearly, 11…h6 was a bit of a mistake. The best move was actually 11…a6, which stops all the b5-nonsense forever, and only after 12.Rc1 h6 is the offending g5-bishop kicked out. Now we play 13.Bd2, with the same ideas as mentioned before.

<iframe width=”600″ height=”371″ src=”https://lichess.org/study/embed/C3h75Q9f/qCdmoOtT#1″ frameborder=0></iframe>

Against 5…Qb6, we’ve learned an interesting gambit line where White keeps up strong positional pressure that often leads to mating attacks. And that wraps up all our theory. 

Conclusion

In the Advance French, Black has three main theoretical options, 5…Nge7, 5…Bd7 and 5…Qb6. We play similarly against all three options, so hopefully all the chess notation didn’t bog down your mind too much. 

In part 3, we’ll look at some model games involving our theory and key ideas. There’s more ground to cover, so keep your ear to the… Chess In The Library website.