corin62 vs. lebesgue72: The Polish(Sokolsky) opening: 12/19/14

Hi! This is a game I played today. My opponent played the Sokolsky opening, which I had only seen once or twice before. Out of the opening, white's b-pawn seemed too advanced for black to tolerate, but somehow, black wasn't able to muster enough attackers to pick it off. The black queen was likely not well-placed for a while. I'm not sure if provoking the white dark-squared bishop to block the white c-pawn from moving beyond its home square was good for black or not. I decided to exchange it off, given the opportunity(which i was). There was a white flight-square move which I'm not sure did alot - it may have been necessary later on, but may have been premature, but it also did take some possibilities for development away from black, so maybe it's not that bad. Black blocked in the development of their queenside minor pieces, which was accentuated by the white b-pawn being so advanced, and with enough defense/support. The other option was blocking the black e-pawn, and fianchettoing the black dark-squared bishop, which didn't seem so bad because the a-file was open, and that bishop would then indirectly be observing the a-1 square. This also accentuates the white knight blocking the c-pawn. Both sides got castled, black tried to get more developed, while keeping options open to put more pressure(which was probably not a good idea) on the white b-pawn(but it was advanced, so maybe putting pressure on it was necessary, while putting pressure on the black pieces. Maybe just blockading would be a better option for the next time something like this comes up). There were some tactics which were lurking in the background. White ended up caturing from d to c, which may or may not have been good, depending on the tactics. The black rook, based on the position and whose move it was, had the time to get to the open a or half-open c file, which ended up being good. There was then a mistake by white, and then white was down a minor piece. The pawn structures were such that the communication between the white b and c pawns was cut off, and thus black was able to pick off the white b-pawn without white getting much compensation. In summary, the main things to learn from this are some general things that can happen in this Polish opening, how the white dark-squared bishop gets potential, and maybe shouldn't be allowed to get exchanged off so easily for the white side, why it may not be so useful to bring the black queen out to the a-file, why it can sometimes be good to provoke pieces to block some pawns on their home squares for a while(the white c-pawn in particular here), some issues in queenside black development that can come up from the idea of the white b-pawn being so advanced, and easily protected, and how some thought/decisions should be put in as to what the development of the black pieces should be w.r.t. the above issues. Blcak's queenside piece development was majorly delayed, and that definitely wasn't a good thing. Here's the game: