For most of the Steinitz's history, 5.f4 was the main move. It was where White claimed the most space, and where every French player braced for the main fight. That has quietly changed. Modern theory has worked the 5.f4 lines out so concretely that White struggles to prove anything real — and a second front has opened at 5.Nce2, the positional try where understanding matters more than memory. Part 1 of GM Andrea Stella's Steinitz answers both, and treats them as two different problems needing two different kinds of preparation.
Labels:
7h 27m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
Modern French preparation has narrowed. A handful of fashionable tabiyas now absorb most of White's attention, and the analysis around them runs deep. GM Felix Blohberger's second volume goes the other way — down older, classical roads that White players have quietly stopped studying.
That choice is the connective tissue of Part 2, which completes the repertoire begun in Practical French for Black — Part 1. Where the first volume handled 3.Nc3 and the early sidelines, this database covers everything that remains after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5: the Advance, the Tarrasch, and the Exchange.
Labels:
1h 48m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
For most of its history, 3.exd5 has been the move you play when you are happy to shake hands. Symmetrical pawn structure, an open centre, nothing structural to fight over — the Exchange French earned a reputation as the most peaceful reply to the French, the line you reach for on a tired afternoon. So it means something that one of the most inventive attacking players of his generation has built a serious repertoire with real winning chances.
In The Exchange French — Top-Level Repertoire for White, GM Baadur Jobava and GM Pier Luigi Basso set out to dismantle that cliché. The symmetry, they argue, is deceptive: beneath it lies a structure full of small, durable imbalances, and the better-prepared side can lean on them until they decide the game. This is the Exchange French as a fighting choice, not a truce.
Labels:
2h 21m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice
Multilingual Database:
Some ideas survive a century of theory precisely because nobody thinks to question them. The bishop's natural squares in the French Advance are d3, e2, and occasionally b5 only after the pawn structure has settled. In Fight the French Defense — A Repertoire, GM Luis Supi asks a simpler, sharper question: what if the bishop arrives on b5 before White has even played d4? The answer reorganizes an entire branch of the French around a single, unexpected move.
Labels:
1h 33m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
At the top level, the French has drifted toward equality. The fashionable 7...cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qb6!? is now mapped so deeply that many games are decided before the middlegame begins.
GM Felix Blohberger builds his repertoire around a different idea — steering Black into lightly explored positions where both sides still have to play real chess. The emblem of that approach is a move you will rarely find in a database: 7...h6!?, preparing the disruptive ...g5 break.
Labels:
1h 34m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
After a catastrophic 25-move defeat to Smyslov in the 1954 World Championship match, Botvinnik did what he always did: he went home and studied. He emerged with a single quiet king move, 7...Kf8, and uncorked it against Unzicker at the Amsterdam Olympiad that same year. Every modern engine now confirms it as the best continuation in the line — a verdict Botvinnik reached decades early, armed with nothing but a board and the discipline to interrogate his own loss.
That moment is the spine of the fourth and final volume of GM Pier Luigi Basso's Understand the French series, and it points to what this course is really after. The lesson isn't the move — it's the method that produced it. With Rubinstein, Petrosian, and Korchnoi, you could study a player and adopt his repertoire. Botvinnik is loyal to specific systems even when they are dubious, even when they cost him games against Tal, so copying him is not the point. Learning how he thought — and worked — is.
Labels:
2h 43m PGN Download Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
For decades, the French Defense has demanded a complete answer to White's alternatives. Players comfortable against the Advance, Tarrasch, or Steinitz often find themselves unprepared when White sidesteps theory with 2.d3, 2.Qe2, or the deceptively simple Exchange Variation. GM Szymon Gumularz and GM Pier Luigi Basso now complete their French Defense series by tackling precisely these gaps—offering a unified repertoire against every system White can throw at you after 1.e4 e6.
Sequence: French Defense According to Gumularz »
Labels:
4h 28m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice
Multilingual Database:
Viktor Korchnoi didn't play the French Defense — he fought with it. While Rubinstein gave the opening its strategic foundations and Petrosian refined it into a tool of prophylactic perfection, Korchnoi transformed the French into something entirely different: a weapon of uncompromising combativeness. This third volume in GM Pier Luigi Basso's Understand the French Defense series presents the opening through the eyes of one of history's most resilient fighters, revealing how "ugly" positions and concrete energy can overcome even the most objectively balanced evaluations.
Sequence: 1.e4 Structures »
Labels:
2h 7m PGN Download Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
The French Defense carries two reputations: a fortress for players seeking solidity, and a labyrinth of forced draws in the most explored lines. GM Szymon Gumularz and GM Pier Luigi Basso challenge that second notion directly.
If you play the French for fighting chess — not memorization contests ending in perpetual checks — then 7...Rb8 after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be3 offers exactly that. With fewer than 500 games in the database and regular employment by Matthias Bluebaum, this system delivers fresh positions where preparation depth matters less than understanding.
Sequence: French Defense According to Gumularz »
Labels:
3h 39m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests Computer Practice
Multilingual Database:
The Tarrasch Variation (3.Nd2) is chosen by players who value solidity over complications, aiming to limit Black's active possibilities while maintaining a safe edge. Gumularz and Basso systematically dismantle this comfort zone.
Their repertoire is built on 3...c5—Black's most principled response—followed by the healthy recapture 4...Qxd5, avoiding structural concessions. Unlike creative but offbeat approaches such as Jobava's 3...h6, this course prioritizes classical logic and practical reliability.
Sequence: French Defense According to Gumularz »
Labels:
2h 42m PGN Download Memory Booster Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database: