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Rating: 
Summary: Fun and effective way to play against the French
Review: This book is pretty well written. It has some intro pages discussing the merits (and demerits) of the opening. This is followed by chapters sorted by variation. Each variation is illustrated by a number of actual games with light annotations. The progression of games is interesting - the author starts out with some of the less critical variations (i.e. the practical over-the-board responses that a player who is "winging it" would play) and builds logically to the most testing lines (i.e. the variation that the stronger player who is prepared will play) The author claims a 77% kill rate, according to his database. This is a truly impressive statistic. The author is careful to explain that the high percentage of white wins includes some games played by club level players, experts, and a few masters. At the GM level, where defensive play is a fine art, the results would be far less positive. I have played the advance French variation for years as white (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 ? ) as an attempt to cut down on my study workload as white. The problem is that quite frankly I have found the resulting positions to be very boring - not something that I could sink my teeth into. By playing the Alapin French, 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Be3? ) You save a lot of study time for white by forcing black to play your chosen game. At the same time, the positions get very tactical and exciting fast, which will appeal to most players under the Master level.
Rating:
Summary: Fun and effective way to play against the French
Review: This book is pretty well written. It has some intro pages discussing the merits (and demerits) of the opening. This is followed by chapters sorted by variation. Each variation is illustrated by a number of actual games with light annotations. The progression of games is interesting - the author starts out with some of the less critical variations (i.e. the practical over-the-board responses that a player who is "winging it" would play) and builds logically to the most testing lines (i.e. the variation that the stronger player who is prepared will play) The author claims a 77% kill rate, according to his database. This is a truly impressive statistic. The author is careful to explain that the high percentage of white wins includes some games played by club level players, experts, and a few masters. At the GM level, where defensive play is a fine art, the results would be far less positive. I have played the advance French variation for years as white (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 ? ) as an attempt to cut down on my study workload as white. The problem is that quite frankly I have found the resulting positions to be very boring - not something that I could sink my teeth into. By playing the Alapin French, 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Be3? ) You save a lot of study time for white by forcing black to play your chosen game. At the same time, the positions get very tactical and exciting fast, which will appeal to most players under the Master level.
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