Sokolsky Opening. Has anyone had success persisting with the lines

With regards the Sokolsky . Having played the exchange line I somehow found myself facing the Alekhine pistol because a line was opened in the centre somehow. I can’t quite work out why open lines are filled with two rooks and a queen though when I play badly 😂 😂😂

But in the above board I showed Nimzowitch got into it from Alekhine somehow .

When white Qc1 the pressure you feel as black  is hard to quantify. 

Members here are providing outstanding incites into various lines . It’s what separates the “ wheat ( them) from the chaff ( me) lol

I can see the clear logic you outlined Miguel😊😊

And blueemu…. I have taken note of your advice also.

sometimes clean chess gives paradoxically the worse result. 

dont believe me? play agaisnt a computer a queen up and see what happens. Strong players know when to give up on objectivity and play for tricks and swindles. Computers always looking for the best move will not risk play for imperfect attacks even if they would have worked agaisnt weaker player. 

part of being a great chess player is knowing how to rationally  bait for your opponents mistakes. Of course strong players often play with like 95% + accuracy so cheap traps wont do. The game becomes more subtle. For example, you playing against a mainline caro-kahn, and you 15 moves in and have a 0.2 "Advantage" , you can play cleanly a while longer and likely get a draw or you play a provocative move that is according to the engine -0.15 but if black doesnt find the proper continuation is 0.3 or better for white. What do you do? the engine will chase perfection, but human players face these imperfect kisses of poison all the time. How much risk you take of this form is also part of chess style.

They are some players that swear on pure rationality" fischer play the board style but even they if you observe their game set up "traps" for their opponents to fall for. They simply have a higher standard of when those speculative gambles are allowed

can you show us this game?

Here is the middle of the game playing the Sokolsky and the exchange variation with white

I face the Alekhine pistol. Now here is where I resigned

I have control of the Center pawns. As I said before. If I don’t push my Center advantage earlier I am wiped out on the queen side.Anyway, I played very poorly but the point I wanted to make is that open file black had

This is why I asked the question about not having any pieces past the Center. Black does and anchors his pawns.

I have the “ hole in my teeth” on the b file. Also having pawns on the e and maybe d file somehow allows an Alekhine pistol on an open file. But I play the Sokolsky badly and need to follow the book theory exactly in the opening I’m guessing

aflfooty,

I took a quick look at your game. I see you played 4 c4 in the exchange line. It seems you probably don't have Hansen's book on 1 b4 that came out in 2021. He recommends 4 c3 and indicates soon afterwards white will play Bxf6 followed by d4, with white sometimes winding up with the pawns on c3, d4, e3, f2, g3, h2 (or h4), and black often struggles trying to figure out what to do with his dark squared bishop against such a structure. 

Hansen calls it The Magnus Method because that is the way the WC himself has played it as white. 

Yes. That’s true. Does it therefore dismiss c4 as a move. I found problems with it and when I played c3 in another training game it felt better !!

Previous works pushed c4 and I like c3 much better!!!

Taking the knight with the bishop at the correct moment and then populating the black squares with a number of whites pawns seems to be the consensus against the exchange variation.

ThrillerFan had already posted positively about 4 c3 from Hansen's book. Darkunorthodox88 said white's king is safer with 4 c3. I don't think Hansen mentions 4 c4. 

“””ThrillerFan 
 
 
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It is currently my main weapon of choice as White over the board, as was the case in 2008, 2009, and 2014.

I think the older lines are dubious (1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 Bxb4 3.Bxe5 Nf6 and now 4.Nf3 or 4.c4), but Carlsen's idea, which Carsten Hansen goes into detail with in his book on 1.b4, is fully sound and what I currently play, which is 4.c3.  White, at the right time (Hansen explains when that time is), trades off the Bishop for the Knight on f6 and plants his pawns on the dark squares.”””

I wanted to try in a training game what thriller fan called “ the older lines of c4” for myself. Nothing like playing it and comparing it with c3. I think c3 is simply better

Miguel mentioned this earlier in a post

“”i dont think 4.c4 is dubious although if black begins playing like an engine for 15 moves, whites corridors are more narrow.”

Are there any games where c4 can be a positive move with black playing the correct lines. I struggled with it but if I played it perfectly could it be a good move.