Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...e6/2. d4/2...d5/3. e5

White advances their e-pawn. They gains some space advantage immediately, and prevents Black from developing their king's knight to its most natural square f6.

Because Black's position is somewhat cramped at the moment, they usually decide to undermine White's pawn chain, which hinders Black from developing the pieces of their kingside to good squares. This is typically done by attacking the base of White's pawn chain―d4―by playing 3...c5.

The c5 pawn break is critical. 3. Nc6?, which prevents Black from moving the c-pawn, affords White an easy game.

A couple of other sidelines have been tried to resolve the problem of Black's queenside "French bishop", which is difficult to develop actively as Black's e6 pawn does not look to be going anywhere.

• 3...b6, intending ...Bb7 and hoping that they will be able to one day open the long diagonal by freeing their d5 pawn, or ...Ba6 to trade their "bad" bishop for White's "good" one.
• 3...Bd7, called the Extended bishop swap, where Black would like to trade off bishops, eg. 4. Nf3 a6 5. Bd3 Bb5 6. O-O Bxd3 7. Qxd3.

For explanation of theory tables, see theory table and for notation, see algebraic notation.

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5

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Wikipedia has related information at French Defence

• Kasparov, Garry, & Keene, Raymond 1989 Batsford chess openings 2. ISBN 0-8050-3409-9.