Four Gambits To Beat the French by Tim Harding is the latest Chess Digest publication and, like the Silman Sicilian book I discussed in a previous review, it is physically of a much higher standard than works from this publisher were a few years ago. The typesetting and editing are also well done. Of course, the author also makes a big difference; Tim Harding has been writing for many years (well before the Age of Databases), and knows how to put together a coherent book. He has always been willing to explore unusual variations and ones which are difficult to write about, and Four Gambits is no exception. Harding's particular strength has been to identify areas of theory which other books have neglected (I plead guilty), and that alone has made him a valuable author over the years.

There seems to me, however, to be a problem with the message of this book. At the outset, I'll grant that the book's intended audience is not a sophisticated one, as Harding makes clear in his introduction. The lines of the book are meant to be fun, as he says, even to the extent of sacrificing results for pleasure, or for playing in the "more relaxed" settings of email and online blitz play. Okay, that sets up a very modest goal for the book, but still, I wonder if readers will be satisfied with what they get. The title does suggest that you can "beat the French" with the chosen gambit lines, and two of them are rather positively described: the "murderous" Milner-Barry and the "IM-killer" Winkelmann-Reimer. Incidentally, as far as I can make out, Harding never describes why it kills IMs or which IMs have died in the process of facing it. Perhaps this is buried in a note somewhere, but all the introduction to the line says is that "not for nothing is it called the 'IM-killer.'" Odd.

Anyway, to return to my point, it is not always clear how ultimately effective these four gambits seem to be, especially as they are gambits for White, who at the very least doesn't want to emerge from the opening with a disadvantage. But that's exactly the problem; White can't even seem to equalize against good play! And Harding, a very experienced French player himself, is honest enough about the theoretical value of the lines. Regarding the Winkelmann-Reimer (probably the best of these gambits), he says: "I think the WRG is perhaps objectively unsound...," but that it's a "better practical chance than most of White's sharp alternatives to 4.e5," which is not saying much. In the end, he doesn't offer anything equal for White after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 dxe4 6.f3 e5 (Huebner's remedy), and in lines such as 6...Nd7 7.Nh3, he doesn't consider 7...Ngf6 8.fxe4 Nxe4 (intending 9.Qg4 Ndf6), which I have played and believe favors Black. As for the Milner-Barry (the second-best of the gambits), Harding seems to concede that Black has a good game after just about every possible move order for White, once you look closely. And, as with the other gambits, he has the odd habit of giving apparently strong moves by Black without suggesting how White should improve, e.g., in the line 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.Bd3 cxd4 7.cxd4 Bd7 8.0-0 Nxd4 9.Nxd4 Qxd4, he gives 10.Qe2 an "!" (to avoid certain ...Qxe5 lines, which he likes for Black), and then gives a note with the standard remedy 10...f6! leading to a large Black advantage, but without any suggestions for White. He also fails to mention the effective 13...Bc5 in this same line after 10...Ne7 11.Nc3 a6 12.Kh1 Nc6. Finally, he lists but fails to appreciate the strength of some irregular (he says "inferior") options for Black, such as, in the above line, 10.Nc3 Ne7, which leads to 11.Nb5 Qxe5 12.Re1Qb8 13.Nb5 Bxb5 14.Bxb5+ Nc6 15.Qxd5 Qd6 and Black's position is much better than is indicated by the only game ever cited.

As I say, Harding deserves credit for his honesty. In the French Wing Gambit, 1.e4 e6 2.Nf3 d5 3.e5 c5 4.b4 cxb4, he gives 5.d4 Bd7 6.a3 Qa5! 7.Bd3 Bb5 and simply says, "This is a hard line for White to play"; whereas after 5.a3 Nc6 6.axb4 Bxb4+ 7.c3 Be7 8.d4 f6 "!", for example, he just says that "White badly needs to come up with something new in this line." There are several other examples throughout the French Wing Gambit, which, incidentally, is just not a very good opening. Finally, in the "Alapin-Diemer" gambit, beginning with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Be3 dxe4, Harding seems to concede that Black doing well in the line 4.Nd2 Nf6, and he tries to defend positions like 4...exf3 5.Nf3 Nf6 for White; but even on the face of it, this is just a normal Blackmar-Diemer Gambit with the undesirable and passive move Be3 for White.

Okay, I don't want to go on forever, but thought that the reader might like to hear about a few remedies to some of these gambits. Let me also mention some of the good qualities of Four Gambits. Harding includes a number of his own games with both Black and White to introduce various lines, with fun and instructive notes. His annotated games (a lot of them from correspondence play) include a lot of new moves and new theory in these lines (confirming that there's a lot of investigative space in such lines). From Black's point of view, a 1...e6 player will be interested in the refutations and effective answers to a wide variety of main-- and side-lines, and to alternative gambits. As I mentioned, Harding plays the French and understands it very well. So this book is a definite contribution to theory, and will contain a lot of games and analysis you've never seen before.

The bottom line is that Harding thinks that the average player can have some fun and fool some opponents with these lines. He also thinks that there's room for innovations and creativity, room which is lacking in most heavily-analyzed theoretical lines. He's probably right on both points, and I think that his recommendation of such lines for Internet, correspondence, and email players makes sense. Just be aware that you won't find a lifelong anti-French system here, and that if you use these systems, you'll be trading the pleasure of some enjoyable attacking wins for the pain of some depressing losses in which you never had anything for the pawn.