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r/chessbeginners•
GeckoAttack

French defense exchange variation makes me want to abandon the french... help?

This game from today brought me to my breaking point. It's just one of hundreds of games I've had to endure in this position. If I play the french do I just need to accept that half my games are going to result in this boring symmetrical position?

Nearly all my exchange games go

  1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. d4 Bd6 5. Bd3 Nf6 6. Bg5

I'm frustrated and I don't know what to do to play for an advantage. Is there a sideline I'm missing that can break the symmetry? I've played around in opening explorer but it seems like everything transposes into the same patterns and its all just drawish.

I love the french because in other variations there is a clear game plan. In the exchange it's just symmetrical bullshit where we make the same boring improving moves until someone blunders by trying to make the game interesting.

For context, I'm 1400 lichess in blitz & bullet (2+1 bullet).

Posted Mar 26, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

212
cbarden74•

Best answer here is to abandon the French and actually have fun with chess

6
irjakr•

You could try 4...Bg4 combined with Nc6 at some point to put pressure on the d4 pawn and probably forces c3. Move the queen and you can even castle long and really make the position interesting.

5
That-Raisin-Tho•

This is the way. If you’re willing to accept that it isn’t objectively the best way to play (which at your level you should be, you’re not playing against engines anyways so who cares) then this is a great way to make the exchange less dull

2
GeckoAttackOP•

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a shot!

2
ghostwriter85•

I don't play the French but I do play the Caro Kann which shares some of the same ideas.

If you want an asymmetric position, you have to play an asymmetric opening.

That aside, with the black pieces against a similarly rated opponent a draw is typically a good result.

4
BlueUmbreon9•

I also support changing to the Caro Kann. The exchange variation of it usually leads to some of my favorite positions. Im still working on learning it but i really like it.

Other good options could be the sicillian or the kings indian defense. I havnt played them much but there the next two I want to try and ive heard good things.

1
GeckoAttackOP•

I went through a phase of playing the caro on my chessdotcom account, 191 games in total. In the end I decided I liked the french better and I haven't really played it since. Maybe I just need another break from the french.

2
ghostwriter85•

The first person here,

The CK is not a great stylistic alternative to the French.

It's a good opening that makes getting a playable position relatively easy, but that's about it (IMO). It's more or less the French's cousin from out of town.

i think of them a bit like the QGD and the Slav. They try to accomplish a lot of the same things but go about it in slightly different ways.

2
fluffypancakes314•

Yeah it can be frustrating.

Like, objectively speaking, the exchange is totally fine for black. If I'm black and my opponent plays the exchange during a serious tournament game I'm quite happy. But it's frustrating when you're trying to have fun in a random blitz game and get this.

2
GeckoAttackOP•

Yeah, per the lichess insights I have about the same performance with the exchange variation as I do with any other variation - it's just not fun to play. But I really like playing the other variations...

I think part of the issue is the french isn't super common at my rating and the exchange is an easy way to play against it. So people at my rating don't bother to learn the other variations since they will rarely get those games anyway.

1
jMS_44•

I think part of the issue is the french isn't super common at my rating and the exchange is an easy way to play against it. So people at my rating don't bother to learn the other variations since they will rarely get those games anyway.

That or simply the fact that people still have the approach of "see a pawn, take a pawn"

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