e4 control (among other things such as the value of material and lines) in a QID-dutch formation

This time, we look at a game that has some very interesting positional considerations regarding the value of material, lines and squares. The game was played yesterday in the Friday night 20/5 tournament at FICS. I was black.

The opening is a QID with a Dutch like formation. White expends some energy initially on a rather useless knight adventure, giving black both development and e4 control. Black goes in for the usual knight deployment scheme consisting of Nf6-e4, f7-f5, Nb8-d7-f6 etc. In addition, there is also some preparation for a future outpost on c5 (securing it with a7-a5 preventing b2-b4).

It appears though that black has been inaccurate in choosing his plan because it leads to some rather complicated play where white gets the square e6 for black's d3. This is also the most interesting phase of the game in my view. White's pieces are all poorly placed and badly restricted. His only good pieces are his queen, knight and the d5 pawn (which restricts black's mobility a little, but is also under attack by the Bb7). Exchange offers are made (and declined) for a number of moves owing to qualitative considerations of having good square and diagonal control and pawn targets to aim at. White makes matters easier by blundering away with a queen trade, after which his position falls apart.