Ebook: The French Tarrasch: Understanding an important modern opening

The Tarrasch Variation is White's soundest response to the French Defence and is favoured by positional and tactical players alike. The problem with playing ttJc3 against the French, is that Black just plays the Winawer, doubles your c pawns, gangs up and wins you're a pawn, regroups and defends for a bit and then promotes his a-pawn. It's just too easy for Black, so complained one of my students when he realised that his next opponent was a hardened French Defence player. Well, I must admit to feeling a mixture of smugness and relief at the knowledge that, as an avid Tarrasch devotee, I never have to worry about such things. I briefly showed him a few lines and he was struck by how simple it all looked. Often when studying a new opening, it can look rather foreign to begin with, but this was not the case here. Perhaps, having played the Tarrasch for virtually all my chessplaying life, 1 am a little biased, but it is true that the Tarrasch is really quite simple to play for both White and Black. Of course the real secret is to know how to play it well, but that's what this book is all about.