QGD Question

On the Nge2 topic : it is true that Alekhine is the pioneer of Nge2 in the Exchange Queen's Gambit. But he played it quite rarely (most notably in game 32 of the World Championship match against Capablanca; then also against Kashdan and Vera Menchik), and his idea was not to play f3-e4; his plan was to play a quick h4 and to delay castling.

The modern handling of the Nge2 line comes from the Botvinnik - Keres game, 1952 USSR Championship, akin to the Nimzo pawn roller. Back to the topic, Keres made the mistake of playing Be7-d6, exposing the bishop to the f3-e4 plan, which soon had to retreat.

#20 : usually the trade of minor pieces helps Black in the Queen's Gambit, but multiple factors comes into consideration (space, dark squares weaknesses, and so on). The concept of passive pieces can be quite trappy : some passive pieces are just bad, some pieces can be improved (or made irrelevant), and some passive pieces are actually key defenders of the position (Dvoretsky has a nice example in Slav games with cxd5 cxd5 of an awful bishop on c3 connecting with bad pawns on b2 and d4 to create an effective barrier against Black's counterplay along the c file). Also, at higher level this trade strategy is only good for a draw. Some players may want to play in a more ambitious way.