Chapter 2 Black Takes the d4-Pawn 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.h4! The Winawer system of the French Defense has always been a tough nut for White to crack.

At the same time, it is quite natural that it has served faithfully as the main weapon for such combative players as Mikhail Botvinnik, Viktor Korchnoi and Tigran Petrosyan, because it creates an imbalance at an early stage of the struggle, suiting perfectly those with an ambitious positional style. Following the example of these legends, many modern top players can be found in the list of Black's supporters: Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexander Grischuk, Nikita Vitiugov, Ruslan Ponomariov. "I may yet be forced to admit that the Winawer is sound. But I doubt it! The defense is anti-positional and weakens the kingside," said Robert James Fischer, commenting on his game with Klaus Darga, played back in 1960. It is widely known that Fischer sought to break through the black defense using positional methods, not always with success. That said, his comment contains a clear hint that perhaps the key to taking this fortress lies in destroying Black on the kingside, and the ramming power of the h4-pawn would be most welcome here. We have not found any fundamental work devoted to the rapid advance of the h-pawn in the fight against the Winawer, although this technique is used in a variety of iterations of the system. At first, we planned to write a small survey on the topic, but when it turned out that the ram attack is a regular weapon for White in six or seven different systems of the Winawer and the volume of a possible survey exceeded almost 200 pages, it became clear that one article would not be enough.

It was at this time that the very interesting game Vachier Lagrave-Nepomniachtchi was played in the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg, where the French grandmaster implemented this idea in brilliant style. It so had happened that the position from this game after the 10th move was met in the game of one of the authors four years before the struggle of the two super-grandmasters, and this inspired us to continue studying these interesting and confusing lines. 7.Qc7 [diagram] Threatening to win a pawn, but it turns out that White can sacrifice it for excellent play: 8.h5!.