Move 15 - Final Variations

Feel free to post here whenever you want, but try to post only ONCE for each move (so one post for 15...Nxd5, one post for 15...Qd8). Please use the EDIT button to update your post and the notes to inform us that you did. You may comment only on your own variations. Comments/questions on another member's variations go in the other topic for the respective move.

I doubt our choice or recommendation would make a difference in the voting, but we can at least score points for style and character. 

Voting at 12 hours is voting too late, which I think we talked about before.  I strongly recommend changing that to voting at 8 hours, which would give more than 50% of the voters a chance to see our ideas and recommendations before they have committed.

I am fine with either 15...Qd8 (which many of you support) and 15...N:d5 (which I originally said I preferred).  I doubt we can expect a positional mistake from a positional player like Natalia, so leaving the knight on d5 is only going to constrain our position, but if you'd rather vote for Qd8, I'd go along.

I feel the format of the discussion could be improved,  since I was surprised to find that some people whose analysis supported my decision preferred the other option! [Worse, that they support the option that seems difficult to get played now] We need more clear assessment of endpoints as well as analysis from our most expert contributors.

My friends, you are so much stronger players than me, so i am a little shy to post any ideas here, but i think we should stay with the plan we had before wich is to get rid of the Knight at d5, and keep our queen on c7 in order to keep the pressure on c2...

...but, as i said, you are the top guns, so i will follow you

D3V1L and noodlehead presented very interesting problems we may face with Nxd5

Qd8 loses a pawn.

I added some of Sunshiny's idea to the analysis tree, for the line 15. ... Qd8 16. a4, which probably won't be played now.

Unfortunately there is a problem with chess.com analysis diagrams at present that analysis can get lost whenever you promote a line, but hopefully this will be fixed before too long.

Yeah, that happens to me too. I am hesitant to make branch variations now.

The precise nature of the bug is that if you demote any line which has branches off it, all the branches get lost. Actually often convenient for simple analysis, but not good for a complex unclear tree.

Sunshiny's idea (which I haven't noticed a refutation of) does seem to mean to IMCheap's and others' view that we should do a double exchange on strategic grounds is tactically true as well.

Where? I don't see them.

I have added my idea of a Sveshnikov-like g6 at the end of a line where D3V1L was concerned about Bg4. This allows us to preserve the bishop pair with f5, probably rerouting the king's bishop to the long diagonal if we can defend d6. Of course whether this is a plan that works remains to be examined.

Good work. Now added to the diagram above.