The French Classical by IM Byron Jacobs covers much more than you might imagine. Usually, the term Classical in the French applies to 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7. Jacobs' book treats all the variations after 3...Nf6 including the McCutcheon (4.Bg5 Bb4), Burn (4...dxe4) and Steinitz (4.e5).

This book follows the usual Everyman Chess format, using annotated games to present the material instead of the more typical opening book setup. Here the reader gets 78 annotated games with the material divided almost evenly between the currently very popular Steinitz and 4.Bg5.

The Steinitz, championed by Vishy Anand, has been putting Black's resources to the test. In particular, the line 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nce2 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Nf3 or 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ndf3 Qb6 8.Ne2 if you prefer, has been causing a lot of grief. I served as one of the US coaches at the recent World Youth Championships in Spain. While working with one of our players, IM Vinay Bhat, I was struck at the difficulties Black is facing. In the first half of the tournament Vinay played the Romanian representative Constanin Lupulescu in this variation and followed John Watson's suggestion in his excellent Play the French repertoire book: 8...f6 9.g3 cxd4 10.cxd4 fxe5 11.fxe5 Bb4+ 12.Nc3 O-O 13.Bf4 g5, but after 14.Nxg5 Qxd4 15.Qxd4 Nxd4 16.0-0-0 h6 17.Rxd4 Bxc3 18.Nxe6 Bxd4 19.Nxd4 Re8 20.e6 Nc5 21.Bb5 Nxe6 22.Bxe8 Nxd4 23.Bh5 Bf5 24.Kd2 Rc8 25.Rc1 Rxc1 26.Kxc1 found himself in a very difficult ending. Afterwards Lupulescu mentioned that he analyzed the position to the two Bishop ending with his trainer GM Nisipeanu!

Jacobs suggests that the right way to play for Black is 13...Be7. He gives the game Dolmatov-Bareev, Elista 1997, as his model game where the second player dealt with 14.Qd2 very effectively. He also has good answers to 14.Na4 and 14.Bh3, but fails to mention the very strong 14.a3! which has been known since the early 1980s, but only recently attracted attention. This is one line where Black needs to do some serious patching up.

The French Classical is not suitable as a stand-alone guide to the French but used in conjunction with other works on the opening it can be a very useful update or resource for new ideas.

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