The French Defense According to Stella: The Steinitz for Black – Part 2
With 4.Bg5, White tries to change the subject. Rather than the direct 4.e5 that Part 1 was built to answer, the bishop develops and invites the French player onto different ground. Stella's reply, 4...Be7, quietly declines the argument — after 5.e5 the game folds straight back into the Steinitz pawn chain the whole repertoire is built around. The move meant to sidestep the Steinitz becomes another road into it.
A choice to play for the win
The fashionable reply today is 4...dxe4, solid and healthy but difficult to win with. Stella recommends the classical 4...Be7 instead, keeping the central tension and steering toward a full-blooded middlegame. That decision sets the tone for the course: this is preparation for the player who wants to fight with Black, not only to hold.
It also closes a gap most French players leave open. Many opponents — grandmasters included — prepare the Exchange with 3.exd5 and forget that 4.exd5 exists as a separate move order. The course takes it seriously: after 4.exd5 exd5, Black reaches an easy, active game against both 5.Nf3 and the trickier 5.Bg5 c6 6.Qe2+.
The authors and their reasoning
Stella used the Steinitz as his own main answer to 1.e4 for years, and that practical experience runs through the material — the lines are picked for their practical value, not just the engine's verdict — the positions Black can handle over the board, where the plans are clear and the pitfalls are known.
GM Pier Luigi Basso writes the introduction and shares the analytical work. A few points anchor the repertoire and are worth remembering: against 5.exd5, Black recaptures with 5...Nxd5!, not the pawn; against the fashionable pawn sacrifice 6.h4!? — already some 10,000 games — the accurate reply is 6...Bxg5!; and in the main tabiya after 9.Bd3, the move that completes the whole system is 9...f6!.
Variation map
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 — Stella's classical choice, not 4...dxe4
5.e5 Nfd7 6.Bxe7 Qxe7 7.f4 O-O 8.Nf3 c5 — the main tabiya
- 9.Bd3 f6! → Chapter 9
- 9.Qd2, the main line → Chapter 8
- 9.Nb5 → Chapter 10
- 8.Qh5 and setups without Nf3 → Chapter 7
- 7.Nb5 → Chapter 6
- 7.Nf3 and other sidelines → Chapter 5
5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4!? Bxg5 7.hxg5 Qxg5 — the fashionable pawn sacrifice → Chapters 11–15
5.Bxf6 — played in some 2000 games, but already a mistake → Chapter 4
5.exd5 Nxd5! — the knight recapture that neutralises the line → Chapter 1
4.exd5 exd5 — the Exchange move order many players forget
- 5.Nf3 Bd6 6.Bd3 O-O 7.O-O Bg4 8.h3 Bh5 9.g4 Bg6 → Chapter 2
- 5.Bg5 c6 6.Qe2+ Be6 7.f4 → Chapter 3
Inside the course
This is a Modern Chess Premium course, built as a complete training system:
- 15 theory chapters with video explanations
- 30 test positions — critical tactical and strategic moments
- 5 key concepts — the recurring strategic ideas that hold the repertoire together
- 3 model games — full-length games showing the plans in action
- Memory Booster — for long-term recall of the key ideas
- To-Go version of every chapter — condensed files for pre-game review
- A short condensed theoretical file covering the whole 4.Bg5 Steinitz for Black
- Multilingual PGN files — English, German, French, and Spanish
- Full download access — all materials are yours to keep
Completing the picture
Part 1 answered 4.e5, the line Stella considers the most important to face today. Part 2 covers everything else White has after 3.Nc3 Nf6 — the 4.Bg5 classical treatment and the 4.exd5 Exchange move order. Taken together, the two volumes are the full Steinitz according to Stella — one consistent, combative answer to 3.Nc3.