Customer Reviews

French Advance

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Tony Kosten has always done a great job in writing books on chess, and this one is no different. For those that play the French Defense as black, like me, this book is a great way to get a more detailed, theoretical knowledge of the Advance Variation. I would recommend reading a general book on the French first to get a basic foundation, but that is obviously not enough, as you might get what? 5 games on the advance? Anyone that thinks they can understand and master an opening with 5 games is crazy. This book solves that problem. For those of you that play the Advance as white, I would recommend this over reportoire books that take you down the narrow path with the "you play this, and just trust me, you'll win" approach. This covers all the lines in the advance French. Explore them all, and then decide for yourself which line you want to play to beat the French. I guarentee you this book isn't a dust collector that sits on your shelf for years and years.

First of all, Tony Kosten is a great author and the introduction chapter of the french advance book is excellent. It shows you main ideas and tactics for both sides. I am an expert strength player that have been playing the french for over 10 years. I also teach it to my students, so I have many french books and try to pull material from all of them to teach it.

If you are looking for a good collection of games in the french advance, this book is for you. However, it has absolutely no fresh ideas or lines. Kosten, in many cases does not even consider some of the major sidelines. For example, he does not cover the major line versus 6.Be2 f6 7. 0-0 cd! that John Watson gives in his classic Play The French book. I highly recommend that book for Winawer players(as Watson gives solid lines for all lines except Classical french). Kosten's book came out 2 years after Watson's, but still he gives inferion 7...fe for black. Same can be said about the part in Milner gambit, where Kosten fails to mention 13... Bc5 instead 13...Nb4 in 10...a6 where black does not take the pawn on e5.

I know this might seem a little picky, but I was expecting a more complete work from Kosten. Putting together a bunch of games using some database seems like an easy way out.

Divided into three parts, The French Advance book covers 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 c5 4 c3 Nc6 5 Nf3 Qb6( with various White 6th moves), 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 c5 4 c3 Nc6 5 Nf3 Bd7 (with various White alternative 6th moves), and a third part with Black alternative variations. Kosten explains the plans for both sides, outlines main variations in bold, and employs 93 Grandmaster games as models. Organized with prose chapter introductions, annotated games, and followed by chapter summaries. Anyone owning this book will definitely have a valuable resource to draw upon for learning and "mastering" the French Advance.