One doesn t see many opening books written by top players, so the appearance of THE FRENCH DEFENSE: A COMPLETE BLACK REPERTOIRE by Nikita Vitiugov must be an exception. The 23-year-old Russian, currently rated 31st in the world at 2709, is not an absolute French specialist (he plays the Taimanov and Kan and lately a little Najdorf), but it is clearly his number one weapon and he believes Black can still make it his sole answer to 1.e4.
He writes in the introduction:
The point is however, that chess is becoming more popular and universal and you should have various weapons in your opening armor. Still, if you change skillfully your variations inside the French defense, it may serve you faithfully for Black even if it is your only way to counter 1.e4.
Chess Stars, based in Bulgaria, and predominately featuring authors from that country and Russia, still hasn t completely solved the problem of translating from Slavic languages to English, but the gist of what Vitiugov has to say is easy enough to understand both in the paragraph above and throughout the book. This one small reservation about the English aside, THE FRENCH DEFENSE: A COMPLETE BLACK REPERTOIRE is an outstanding work.
One should not be misled by the length of this book, which like other Chess Stars publications, is quite dense. Certainly THE FRENCH DEFENSE: A COMPLETE BLACK REPERTOIRE cannot be compared for comprehensiveness to the three-volume work on the French by the two-time Soviet champion Lev Psakhis, but there is plenty of meat here that includes current theory, original analysis and plenty of explanatory prose. The author of this work may be youthful in years but his ability to describe the nuances of a particular variation is not lacking nor is a certain dry humor.
THE FRENCH DEFENSE: A COMPLETE BLACK REPERTOIRE covers the following lines:
Vitiugov doesn t pretend to cover more than the bare bones against the King s Indian Attack tries 2.d3/2.Qe2, but elsewhere his coverage is quite good and includes multiple answers against 3.Nd2 (3...dxe4, 3...Be7 and 3...c5/4...Qxd5) and 3.Nc3 (3...dxe4, 3...Bb4 and 3...Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Be3 and now 7...Qb6 and 7...a6).
As mentioned previously, the author believes that it is possible to play the French exclusively against 1.e4. To do this successfully he feels it is important to have variations that can lead to sharp play (for example 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc4 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 cxd4) as well as solid, if slightly passive setups like 3...dxe4. Writing about the latter, the Rubinstein variation, Vitiugov points out that is much different variation than other lines of the French and states:
I would like to recommend to the fans of the French Defense to include this variation in their opening repertoire, but not to have it as their main weapon. You may get used to playing rather simple positions and then you will have problems in other variations of the French Defense. They are complicated with pawn-chains and tension and numerous non-technical tactical motives.
This sort of helpful advice is present throughout THE FRENCH DEFENSE: A COMPLETE BLACK REPERTOIRE, and one can say the author has definitely met his goal of producing a book that shows the general principles, typical maneuvers, pieces to exchange, plans and tactical resources inherent to the French.
