d4 looks inferior to me. there's no reason to let black shatter the wonderful d4-e4 pawn centre, which can be built one move later in complete safety. By the way, the more i look at the position the more i think i would take the white pieces here.
Mainline_Novelty vs stubborn_d0nkey : WITH KIBITZERS!!
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I'm wondering whether I should comment on what I think is better
Really sorry again for the delay guys...What bresando said makes sense, so I am gonna go with 6.Nc3.
why 8.exd5? 8.Nxd5 keeps the centre intact, threatens Nxc7+ and pressurized the f4 pawn.
Bb4 seems like my best bet.
Btw. I'm probably glad d4 wasn't played, what to do after. 6.d4 Nxd5 7. exd5 Qxe5 8. Bxf4 would have probably given me a headache :P Seemingly too many options after that
You're right, i completely misevaluated 6.d4.
Completely is too harsh, they are probably pretty close.
I don't see a viable alternative to Bb4, and I just found a line I don't like in one of the four replies to it that I've been looking at.
Anyways, if nobody comes up with an alternative to Bb4 soon I'm going to play it
6...Bb4
That's one of the replies I considered for white
I don't know what your thought process was, but I think you overlooked a check like 12. Qe2+ in your mainline. 11. Qe2+ might also be better for white
I'm gonna wait for just a few other people's suggestions before I play.
You want to give me knight? I have no problem with that :)
d3 doesn't seem like a bad move at all, perhaps not the best but it's definitely quite solid
The more I look at this position, the more I see that black has the edge, if only miniscule. For the record, each move by white is followed by Bxc3.
d3- solid
d4- active
qe2-is bad i think- a tactical probe that fails. It prevents Nxd5 for one or two moves maybe, but after 0-0 black is fine. Black can even consider
This looks dangerous for white.
Bb3- this is also bad. Black will play 0-0, Re1 and win the e pawn with no threat to the f7 pawn. and lay claim to the e-file. Bg4 will add more pressure to the position.
In every line black has a miniscule edge.
And that was the other one