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Recently, I played a game where my opponent with the Black pieces responded with a defence that I hadn’t encountered before. As usual for me, I led with my king’s pawn, and my opponent played the French Defense (1. e4 e6). As per my usual heuristic, I try to take the full centre with pawns if I am allowed, so my next move is the queen’s pawn (2. d4). Now, in every game of the French Defense that I remember, and I don’t encounter the French that often, my opponent has played their queen’s pawn next (2… d5). That’s what I was expecting. Instead, my opponent played the Franco-Sicilian Defense, also known as the Franco-Benoni Defense with (2… c5). As per the name, it’s like a French and Sicilian!

In the actual game, I did extremely well with an accuracy of 96.1% and my opponent resigning on move 13. I had initially thought that this was some sort of weird opening that was bad. However, during analysis, I came to admire the Franco-Sicilian Defense! It seems to be quite a solid and flexible opening, and it is very likely to be unexpected for the opponent with the White pieces. This is not a common opening. According to the Lichess community database of lower rated blitz and rapid games, this has occurred in only 0.4% of games starting with e4.

On move 3, this defence can transpose into other structures. If White pushes the d-pawn (3. d5), this becomes a Benoni structure, which overall seems to be fairly equal.

If White, however, develops their knight to defend the pawn on d4 (3. Nf6), this transposes into a Sicilian. Black should then trade pawns (3… cxd4) and after White recaptures the pawn with their knight (4. Nxd4), the position is surprisingly good for Black with a wide range of possible moves. This is despite the Stockfish evaluation favouring White slightly at [+0.6]. In the Lichess database, these moves either have a win ratio that favours Black, or it is equal to White!

Unfortunately for my opponent, they played a move that at first glance seems to be a completely reasonable, developing their knight (3. Nc6) but is possibly one of the worst book moves with a name that isn’t a gambit. Chess.com calls this the Sicilian Defense: Open, Franco-Sicilian Variation (1. e4 e6 2. d4 c5 3. Nf3 Nc6) and Stockfish gives it an evaluation of over [+2] (on move 3!). After the easy to find best move for White (4. d5), they now have a win ratio over Black of 62% vs 35% in lower rated games, and 69% vs 18% in master games!

My opponent didn’t play the most accurately after this and was substantially behind on development. I was able to aggressively attack their position and the game ended when they hung their queen.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/52879811243

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.07.30"]
[Round "-"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "kaveh3213"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "B40"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Sicilian-Defense-French-Variation-3.d4"]
[UTCDate "2022.07.30"]
[UTCTime "00:29:56"]
[WhiteElo "1291"]
[BlackElo "1229"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]
[StartTime "00:29:56"]
[EndDate "2022.07.30"]
[EndTime "00:42:41"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/52879811243"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 c5 {The Franco-Sicilian Defense is an uncommon but solid and flexible opening for Black.} 3. Nf3 {This move transposes into a Sicilian.} (3. d5 {This move transposes into a Benoni structure.}) 3... Nc6 $5 {However, the \"open\" variation is seemingly quite bad with an evaluation of over [+2] and
White winning over 60\% of games at both the beginner and master level.} (3... cxd4 {For Black, this is the best move with a surprising range of options afterwards, many of which which favour Black in terms of win ratio.} 4. Nxd4
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4... Nc6) 4. d5 exd5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Nc3 g6 $2 7. Qe2+ Qe7 8. Ne4 Nf6 9. Nxf6+ Kd8 10. Ne4 Bg7 11. Bg5 f6 12. d6 Qe5 $4 13. Nxe5 {[%c_effect
e1;square;e1;type;Winner,d8;square;d8;type;ResignBlack]} 1-0