- ISBN13: 9781857443370
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
After the immense success of the first two editions, the chess world has been anticipating the next instalment with baited breath… and now the wait is over! Once again this is a fully revised edition of John Watson’s classic Play the French, providing Black with a complete repertoire in the French Defence, one of the most strategically and dynamically complex opening systems. As is typical with his books, Watson often arms the reader with not one, but a choice of two and sometimes three lines against every main variation. Watson also presents a thorough grounding on the positional and tactical aspects of the opening and outlines the typical plans for both White and Black. This is particularly welcome for those newcomers wishing to add the French Defence to their openings armoury. Last, but not least, hardened French Defence devotees will find plenty of original analysis and suggestions to sink their teeth into.
The previous editions of Play the French were amongst the most powerful opening books of the 1980s and 90s, and this only added to the large number of French Defence advocates at every level of chess. Now Watson has updated his analysis for French Defence players of the new millennium.
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I’ll give the author five stars for sheer audacity. But I hate this book. First of all, it is purple. Of all the colors, they made it purple!. More importantly, the author is that selfsame person who rudely refused to resign when I played him in a tournament game in 1998. Said something about being a rook up, and punched his clock a bit brusquely, AS THOUGH I WAS THE ONE BEING RUDE. Naturally, I was so upset I wasn’t able to find a continuation of the promising attack I am still sure I had. All I had to do was slip my king back to my side of the board and regain a bit of material. Unfortunately, I can’t find the game score. But take my word for it. John Watson is no Jack Kennedy.
Amazon User Rating: 5 / 5
The Rubinstein should have been included in this book, because 3.Nc3/Nd2 3..dxe4 will indeed reduce your workload when studying the French opening.
Amazon User Rating: 4 / 5
This is a good book for the reasons other reviewers have given, but there is one major deficiency.
Watson gives almost no coverage to 1.e4 e6 2.c4.
This is a very dangerous and complicated opening. If you are unprepared for it, ( and Watson will not prepare you for it )you will have your head handed to you, right in the opening.
The reason it is so dangerous, is as follows :
1) 2..c5 is good, but that means you must learn the Sicilian. So why take the time to learn the French on top of that?
2) 2..c6 gives you a bad, passive Caro-Kann where you have already committed to a premature e6.
3) 2..b6 is the English Defense, regarded as second-rate.
4) 2..e5 and you have lost a tempo compared to 1.e4 e5 2.c4, which can only be bad for Black.
To stay French, you must play 2..d5. This is not bad for Black, but it is
very sharp with plenty of diverse variations and requires plenty of study- and Watson won’t help you at all.
Amazon User Rating: 4 / 5
Watson is at it again! Not suprisingly, he has succeeded once more. Not only is this book easy for the veteran French player to adopt into his or her repotoire, but it also contains fantastic analysis for the newcomer. Raving aside, “Play the French” can mold the wandering novice into a killer! Really, I am a 1300 player and I can crush Class A players quite quickly with this defense(in combination with the Dutch Stonewall too…). Simply put, I would encourage anyone to buy this book. The second edition was great, and this edition is also.
Amazon User Rating: 5 / 5
After hearing all the raves about this book, I have been sorely disappointed in it, for two reasons. First, the production value of Cadogan/Everyman is completely shoddy. This book falls apart on repeated use. Second, and more importantly, the coverage is so slanted toward black that one senses an utter lack of objectivity on Watson’s part. He would have you believe, by his annotations, that the most white can ever get is = in any line. There are entire sections of this book where, according to Watson, white cannot even equalize! Look at his Winawer sections; he does not cite a single game where white had an edge. This type of bias has no place in a work that is otherwise of decent scholarly quality. Readers generally rip books that are one-sided, the type of “winning with…” book that makes it seem that you cannot lose with an opening. Watson does that, big time, in this book. It seems that white has no prayer for more than equality. Such a conclusion is patently absurd. Does black win more with the French than the Sicilian? I think not. Why is the Sicilian played so much more often than the French? The French is fine, but Watson doesn’t mention any downside to it in this book. It is all about black having advantages in the main lines. That conlcusion is bogus, as white will always have a slight advantage with correct play by both sides in the main lines of any opening.
Amazon User Rating: 2 / 5