QG - Tarrasch vs Albin Counter Gambit

Against the Queen's Gambit, which do you consider the better choice for the club player between the Albin Counter Gambit and the Tarrasch? Anyone who has quite a bit of experience in having played both and can give a good summary of the pros and cons?  

The Chigorin (2. ... Nc6) is better than its reputation.

Well I only played Tarrasch and didn't know what I was doing. But I learned about isolated pawns and didn't really need any theory. Getting out of the opening was easy and finding active squares for the pieces was easy.     

The problem came from the g3 lines. In those positions I really couldn't figure out what Black was supposed to be doing. A lot of the moves in those positions didn't look natural while White's play seemed to be a lot easier. You can try c4 lines where Black avoids the isolated pawn but the endgames in those positions seem harder to play than the isolated pawn middlegames. 

I started playing the queens gambit declied after that. 

I have played a chunk of Albin games and I often found that black had to always be striving to mix it up and always have to worry about losing his advanced d pawn.  I think in the Tarrasch you get the isolated pawn and peice activity without giving up material.  So I would say the Tarrasch as it is based on more sound principles.

In the Albin did you ever play it as ...Nge7 followed by ...Ng6. That's considered to quite possibly be the best way to play it now. Yeah, I'm also thinking the Tarrasch. I've read before that even if black's d pawn eventually drops in the Tarrasch black still has a decent chance to hold a draw in the endings.

But if ...Neg7 and ...Ng6 in the Albin is an improvement...

Not sure yet. 

Tarrasch as it is a fundamentally sound opening based on solid positional grounding. Albin is a dubious gambit where black is struggling after a3.

Albin is one of the worst lines you could play, trust me, I've tried that.

Better learn a sound opening, there are many, many for QG. A good guideline is to never play an opening that is not played by GMs (unless for reasons).

You're not "saddled" with an IQP in the tarrasch: you want an IQP. IQP positions are a bit like an "half gambit"; you don't sacrifice a full pawn (you just make it statically weak) but you receive gambit-like compensation in terms of open lines and piece mobility. The tarrasch is a great weapon at club level for several reasons:

-Learning it makes you a better player; knowing how to play IQP positions is an importand middlegame skill and is useful in many openings (there are very few, if any, mayor openings where the IQP never appears). By contrast the albin leads to a very unusual structure which foundamentally never appears in other lines.

-It's the most universal defence avaiable. White can moveorder you out of all the other active defences against 1.d4. For example the albin and the budapest work only against 1.d4 2.c4; if black plays 2.Nf3 you have to use another line. Same for the benko. The tarrach instead can be used not only against both 2.c4 and 2.Nf3, but also against 1.Nf3 and 1.c4 (in both cases white has to play d4 soon or later and traspose to the tarrasch, unless he is fine with black equalizing immediately).

-It's quite theoretical at high levels (just like any other defence) but very untheoretical at club level, since the play is very thematic (as long as you know what to do in IQP positions, you'll be doing ok in the opening).

-Even in positions where white is theoretically a bit better, black is usually the easyer side to play for <2000 players, since he has very active pieces and can easily create tactical threats. By contrast, white has to defend for a while and then show good endgame technique to convent the weak pawn into a win; and good endgame skills are not common at all at club level  ;) 

Progressed beyond? :P not quite, i'm a mere 1870 fide.

The thing about the IQP many people miss (or at least, about the good kind of IQP like the one you get in the tarrasch or in the panov attack; of course there are some positions where it's just an horrible weakness) is that in 95% of the positions you really don't have to defend it at all! It's all about using your piece activity to make counter threats, usually against the b2,a2 and e2 pawns (not to mention the white king), so that you never have to defend the IQP directly; the key is keeping white too busy to try to win it. When black finds himself forced to tie his pieces to the defence of the d5 pawn, then yes, he is in for a long and unpleasant defence. But It shouldn't really happen with correct play (well, maybe yes if white is Kramnik, but in that case I fear alternative defences would prove just as difficult to handle ;)). Besides, one of black ideas is to play the d5-d4 break (often strong even as a pawn sac) to dissolve the isolated pawn. The IQP is just another pawn structure; it's neither a good nor a bad thing to have on the board, and gives you a dynamicedge at the price of a static weakness. The result of the fight will depend on your ability to use the strenghts and cover the weaknesses, not on the fact that the IQP in itself is a bad or a good thing.

By the way, no offence, but the idea of club players suddently turning into technical monsters that mercilessly exploit the weakness, win the pawn and convert the endgame without leaving you a chance is a bit hard to believe ;) That's what i mean with "easier to play at club level". For weak players like me and you it's way easier to exploit piece mobility and random tactical chances rather that a long term pawn weakness. As a result the tarrasch (and all the IQP variations) in my experience score absurdly well at club level.

Albin is waaaay more fun ;-)

Completely agree with Bresando on the Tarrash. Btw Kramniks understanding of IQP setups is one of the reasons he is such a top player. He is one of the best players in these setups with both white and black. 

Also clublevel is kind of relative. My last 2 opponents on my club were 2300+ :)

Well the Albin is more a trap opening. You will win a few cheap games with the Lasker trap (just turn off auto-promote to Q before you play it!) but if white has ever seen it before you will likely end up with a horrid position.

The Tarrasch is what I currently play and it's sound all the way up to GM level (though perhaps not at super-GM level these days). It also is easy to learn and play without huge feats of memorisation as many of the moves are quite natural ones.

You can play the Hennig Von-Schara counter-gambit about half the time if you like (when he goes 3 Nc3 you play 4...cxd4). Whilst engines take the pawn and defend like the demons that they are (rating the position as about 0.6 to White) in most real world games if white manages to find the critical Qb3 variation he then take the undefended pawn on b7 leading to a forced draw after ...Nb4. If white can't find the engine lines he is subject to a pretty withering attack for the pawn, which engines think is exactlay equal but saddles White with the sort of tactical knife-edge defence that typical White Queen's  Gambit players hate..

I play the Tarrasch Defense on a regular basis.  The Albin is garbage.  The one or two times I've tried to play it as Black, I got killed.  As White, let's just say the last time I faced it was in January of this year, and I absolutely CRUSHED it in about 30 moves.

After 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 d4 4.a3! followed by 5.e3!, I quickly won a second pawn, and then proceeded to sacrifice four pawns to mate the Black King (most of them in the matter of merely "ignoring" Black's threats, and while Black scoops up White pawns, White mates the Black King!

The Tarrasch is the better answer by far!

You still get a handful of 2600's and 2700's giving the Albin a punt every season.  Moro has recently drawn games against a few super GM's with it.

So you can safely ignore the advice of anybody calling it "garbage."  That's not so secret code for "I don't understand it."

Cant white avoid the Albin by going 2 Nf3 ?

I'm the OP, but considering my solid style I'm leaning more so towards 4...a6 Slav now. I've read before it said that 4...a6 Slav is sound and good but is also a punching bag if misplayed in the least and should be reserved for 2000+ players. I'm close to 2000 USCF strength and think I can play it though I realise it might take a lot of time before I could handle it well. 

Yes, in that case I was planning on playing 2...Bf5 , and still can, after 2 Nf3 Bf5 is a better and more solid form of the Baltic (is it even still called the Baltic then?) than 2 c4 Bf5 is. Against 2 Nf3, with 2...Bf5 Black heads for a reversed London type setup if allowed, but also sometimes playing ...Nc6 early (instead of ...c6 early) if need be which actuallly can also happen in the London from the white side. 

After white's 1.d4 play d5 and offer a draw?

In that case as I understand it the reversed London you describe is a Slav so why not play that as your general response to d4 rather than learn 2 lines.