We will begin with a classic game, taking the risk of repeating what has already been said in chess literature. For several reasons: This is the most clear-cut example for the French middlegame and especially endgame. I don’t know any other game which can bring you a lot of points by simply following the strategical plan and the setup employed. We will later see how useful the lessons we can draw from this game might be from my own personal experience on the White side. Classical games form a good basis in understanding openings and the strategical themes related. This is generally due to usually weaker resistance from the losing side compared to the games between the current masters, hence allowing the player with the advantage executing his plan unhindered.
Now we will see how we can apply the Tarrasch plan in our own games. I will show you a personal example of mine which I hope will be helpful in understanding the plan and how it works in practice. My opponent in this game, Ates Ulker, was a medical doctor -like our hero Tarrasch!- and had been Turkish Champion many years ago, in fact a year ago before I was born, in 1985. When I was a child like 9 years old or so he gave a simultaneous display in a shopping mall where also the final match for Turkish Championship was being played between two IMs. Our game was the last one to finish and although I had a winning position, the master managed to beat me when he could only focus on our game. I remember that after the game he said some nice words about me and together with my parents we went to McDonalds for a Happy Meal 🙂 So I have an utmost respect for him and although as his rating shows his chess strength had pretty much declined by then his experience was not to be taken lightly. By the way we had another game before this which I also won -and if my memory doesn’t betray me it was again a French Defence game in which I had employed Tarrasch plan with white- probably in 2002 or 2003 but the notation is lost so unfortunately can’t show it.
I believe this game is instructional in the sense that: 1- It exemplifies the plan once more. 2- Underlines the importance of studying the classics 3- Shows what “chess knowledge” means and how we can apply it in practice.
Of course not everything is so simple against a Black player who knows the nuances of the position. Now we will see how Black can fight for equality in this endgame:
After seeing the previous examples one might consider the French endgame to be lost for Black. The truth is far from that. Black structure is nevertheless solid and there is no reason why he should lose. Even if White might have some positional advantages, usually by undermining the pawn center with f6 Black can achieve draw with correct play. In that case, when Black attacks the center with f6, the Tarrasch setup becomes less desirable as e5-pawn might be left as isolated or the center might be demolished altogether, in both cases e-file might be needed open for the rook. However even then the Tarrasch setup has its merits as we’ll see in this game. This is an example of modern chess between two of the strongest players in the world. In a game between such players of equal strength a simple straightforward plan such as Tarrasch employed can rarely be applied. However this doesn’t diminish the merits of knowing the Tarrasch setup. It can certainly be useful against our opponents as we have seen in my game against FM Ulker or the knowledge of this setup might help us finding the best deployment of our pieces.