Chess Evolution: The French Defence (conclusion)

THE French Defence will doubtless continue evolving and, I suspect, remain particularly popular at club level because there is a perception - probably a correct one - that there is less crucial theory after 1.e4 e6 than after the more-popular continuations 1...c5 and 1...e5.

Here I want to go through a 'game' that consists of both sides playing the most-popular continuation in ChessBase's 2020 Mega database, starting with the position after 1...e6.

White - Black

French Winawer

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4!?

I am slightly surprised this is more common, at least in Mega20, than the Classical 3...Nf6.

4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7

This is massively more popular than second-choice 6...Qc7.

7.Qg4 Qc7

This beats 7...0-0 by 4,677 appearances to 4,008.

8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 cxd4 10.Ne2 Nbc6 11.f4 Bd7 12.Qd3 dxc3 13.Nxc3 a6 14.Rb1 Na5 15.h4 Nf5 16.Rh3 0-0-0 17.h5 Nc4 18.h6 Rg6 19.h7 Rh8 20.Rb4 Bc6

Position after 20.Bc6

This position occurs 12 times in Mega20, with two moves being equally popular, having been played four times each: 21.Qd1 and 21.Ne2. The position first occurred in 1992 and last appeared in 2016. White is a pawn up and has the bishop-pair, but Black has two great knights and - probably - the safer king. The analysis engines Stockfish11 and Komodo11.01 reckon the position is dead-equal.