An opening course for Black (ECO C15-C19)
1...e6 says Black is going to play ...d5 and mean it. Against 3.Nc3 this course plays the Winawer, 3...Bb4, which pins the knight that guards e4 and asks White to commit. After 4.e5 there are two roads and they need different temperaments. The main line trades the bishop on c3, hands White the bishop pair and a wrecked queenside, and runs into the Poisoned Pawn, where Black's king stays in the middle with two pawns in the bank and you either know it or you lose. Petrosian's road keeps the bishop, delays ...c5, and plays ...b6 and ...Ba6 to swap Black's bad bishop for White's good one. It runs on ideas rather than memory, and both are here because the authors who wrote about them disagree about which one you should play.
This course is part of your daily work.
...Bxc3+ hands White the bishop pair. In return White's c-pawns are doubled and the dark squares around them never get repaired. Black plays against c3 and d4 for the rest of the game with ...c5, ...Qa5 and a knight on c6 or f5. If you are not going to attack that structure, do not make the trade.
The c8 bishop is stuck behind the e6 pawn and it is Black's worst piece. Both roads in this course are built on getting rid of it: ...b6 and ...Ba6 offers it for White's light-squared bishop, which is White's best attacking piece. Once that trade happens White's kingside play usually stops mattering.
White gets more space in almost every line here, and the engine will tell you White is nearly a pawn better before either side has done anything. The reason it is wrong is that a closed position with nothing to attack turns a development lead into nothing. Black owns the timing of both pawn breaks, ...c5 and ...f6, and White's own breaks with c4 or f4 are much harder to arrange.
After the trade and 6...Ne7, White's queen comes to g4 and hits g7. Taking the pawns with 7...Qc7 is the Poisoned Pawn, the most theory-dense line in the whole opening and a forcing sequence with almost no room to improvise. Castling into it instead is the other option, and one author calls the specific version with 8...Nbc6 almost refuted. Pick before you sit down, not at the board.
Learning order, one scoresheet per chapter. The coach serves review one line a day; enter any line directly when you want it now.
The Winawer begins with a pin and ends, four moves later, with Black giving that bishop away. Everything about the main line follows from the structure the trade leaves behind, so play through it once before you learn a single variation.
White's queen leaves on move seven to take g7. Black lets both kingside pawns go, keeps the king in the middle, and eats the c3 pawn in return. It is the most forcing sequence in the opening and there is almost nothing to decide inside it, which cuts both ways: little to understand, everything to remember.
The same author who wrote the club-level French book chose not to play the main line at all. Instead of 4...c5 he plays 4...b6, keeps the bishop, and spends the opening trading off the bad one on c8. It is the low-memory road: the positions come from a plan you can state in a sentence rather than from a sequence you have to recall exactly.
Seven different fourth moves duck the main line. One author judges none of them a theoretical threat and says the only danger is that Black will not have looked at them. The two the sources analyse in full are the queen moves, and they are also the two that punish Black hardest for improvising.
Not every White player brings the queen to g4. Three other seventh moves have chapters of their own in the source, and all three keep the queen at home and play for the dark squares the trade on c3 gave away. These are short recognition lessons: the source names each branch and its plan, and the moves after that are the engine's.
White pushes on move three and takes the space without a fight. Black's whole game is pressure on d4, because d4 holds up e5 and everything else follows from that. Watch the move order in the main line: ...cxd4 comes before the knight moves, and the knight goes to e7 rather than h6.
The knight goes to d2 instead of c3, so there is nothing to pin and White keeps the option of c3 behind it. This is the one part of the course where the position opens up, and the author who wrote two books on the French says the version with the queen taking on d5 is the soundest answer he found after trying all of them.
3.exd5 has a reputation for being a draw offer. The grandmaster who has played it from White's side for thirty years wrote a book to say that reputation is out of date, and a columnist writing for club players calls it White's practical answer when the main lines cost too much study. Take it seriously: the danger is not losing, it is drifting.
Club games that started in the French Defence produced these tactics, and you solve every one from Black's side, the seat you actually sit in. Difficulty follows your solving, the same as the puzzle room.
The French Defence is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4, and it is filed under ECO C15-C19. This course teaches it from Black's side in 25 drills across 8 chapters, with a coach note on the moves that need one, every position checked with Stockfish at depth 20, and every plan credited to the author who wrote it down.
Lines you will drill
Theory credited to
5 branches are deliberately not drilled here, and the course records which and why rather than leaving the gap silent.
Questions
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