French Defense Chigorin Attack

When someone plays French Defense (1.e4 e6), they always have something prepared and I know nothing about that opening, so I have started playing the Chigorin Attack, which is the move 2.Qe2. It's actually yielded some decent results for me. My game history shows that out of 18 games I have 61% wins, 17% draws, and 22% losses.

Here's some of my wins. I like the psychological advantage I gain by rendering my opponent's memorized opening prep useless, and forcing him or her to find moves over the board from move 2.

Please remember that these are all 10 minute games and I am a beginner playing chess for fun, so please keep criticism constructive.

Your opponents are rather militant about avoiding the critical lines. If this is to be a serious discussion, then you should focus on 2..c5 3. g3 Nc6 4. Nf3 g6 5. Nf3 Bg7 6. O-O Nge7. Even 2…e5 has been played by grandmasters.

 You say "beginner" but you are pretty strong already.  How long have you actually been playing? If it is not long, and you are still young, you might have a very bright chess future ahead.

2.Qe2 offers no kind of advantage, specially if Black knows what he is doing, it just takes basic chess understanding to get a playable position against the Chigorin Attack.

Some think the best move in the position is 2..e5 others 2..c5 and so on, I think 2.e5 gives Black more than a playable opening.

If for some reason you dont want to increase your general chess understanding by correctly studying the mainlines I will suggest you to play the Reti Gambit instead of Qe2.

1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 e5 3.f4! (better than 3.Qh5) gives White a King's Gambit where the extra Qe2 move can have beneficial effects in some lines.  Someone (as Black) once played 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 Nc6! against me, and I thought it was a neat improved move order, as 3.Nf3 e5! eliminates the King's Gambit transposition and it's easier to argue Qe2 is a negative move.  If White tries a waiting move on move 3, Black still has the option of ..d5 as well as ..e5, for instance 3.f4 d5! is clearly fine for Black.

In itself 1.e4 e6 Qe2 Be7 is quite alright for black, and way can insist on playing d5, i.e 3g3 d5 4d3. This would be same sort of setup as can aim for against the KingsIndian attack. The game were you played 3d4 d5 4pxp pxp was a particularly harmless form of the exchange variation. The win had nothing to do with opening.

Once again regarding the French defense, I share the thoughts of TwoMoves: I would just play ...Be7 to play ...d5 next move. Since the Qe2 is blocking the f1-a6 diagonal, the f1-Bishop is likely to be fianchettoed in g2 leading to a KIA, or a KIA-like position... where I would have developped my Bishop in e7 anyway.

I had a look at a chessdatabase to check it. Most of the time (we could almost say 100% without blushing) it does transpose into a KIA.

But there is another quite interesting option.

You can play it as White and feel the history of chess in the air (unless it is marijuana side-effect...). I am talking about the way Chigorin himself played this opening:

In this case, I'm pretty sure few -2000 Black players have a home prep to face it.

Beyond the opening itself, I think the moves 4...Bf6 and 8...Nc6 (in the 5.Bxf6 variation) are very instructive because they seem counter-intuitive. I'm sure most of my opponents would despise me and would say I don't understand how to play the French defense if I dared to play them! Looking at old master games and trying to understand "odd" moves is, to my opinion, a good way to overcome our patzer dogmatism and to get a deeper understanding of chess play.

Regarding the gambit you suggest, Black can simply refuse to help White to carry out his plan of castling long by not taking the pawn and can play 3.Nf6 instead, leading to a typical French defense pawn structure after 4.e5 Nfd7 where Black is at ease.

However, it can catch unprepared low level players off guard, indeed.

Against the French, I simply play 2. d3 followed by 3. Nd2, leading to a King's Indian Attack where Black has already committed himself to a line that's OK for White.

Well, the thing is that it's also for Black. ;)

(French defense and KIA player speaking)

True, enough, but it might not be the line my opponent would have selected against 1. Nf3... while it certainly is the line I would select against the French. Home field advantage?

I agree about the move order. I consider 1.Nf3 as a good way to press where it hurts in my opponents repertoire. You can easily witness a flaw in transpositions.

I like this line against Qe2.It gives black a comfortable game IMO.But Qe2 is definitely a good try to avoid theory and just play chess.

For all of the haters of 2.Qe2 Chigorin Attack -- here's my win % with it here. Remember that I did make the disclaimer that this is a good move against players rated <2000. I concur that it would not be good against master level players (although Mikhail Chigorin was a very strong master himself!)

Here's a more specific breakdown. Some of you in this thread have suggested 2...c5 and 2...Be7 for black, but those moves have done pretty poorly against me. Only 2...Nc6 has given me problems.