Sharp French Defense

This game was CC, 3 days per move, I played black.

I have various questions that appear in the comments.  Any help you can offer would be appreciated. 

Thanks!

Question 1: I think despite how things look going queenside is fine, because then you can use your kingside pawns aggresssively. However I didn't like 11...f5, because it takes the pressure off e5 and it just seems that white has more freedom for his queenside attack compared to yours. I would have preferred something like ...g5 followed by ...g4 to undermine the e pawn, and if you can win the center like that then you definitley shouldn't be worried about an attack on your king.

Question 2: It's often good to have this kind of mentality but I don't see why you need to allow white to win a queenside pawn, which significantly weakens your king. I think white should have took the a pawn immediately instead of Bxg7, as ...b6 fails to Ba6+. Then the position would be very interesting: you have lots of mobile center pawns but white is threatening to counter them simultaneously opening the c file (where your king is) with c4. I get the feeling though that you can consolidate your position with something like ...Bc6 and then ...e5 anyway, and if white plays c4 and takes he's just activating your pieces, and if he goes c5 he lets your center pawns march, which should be superior to his queenside ones.

Edit: never mind, if ...Bc6 at any point I somehow missed b5, so maybe the position is dangerous for black after all!

Around move 25 white probably had a winning attack as his pieces are right in the fray compared to yours, I think he just screwed it up.

Lets see. On move 27 dxe6 might be very strong, but I won't try to analyze it because it'll probably be terribly flawed. I recomend you check the game from 25 on with a computer.

Alright, so I answered the questions concerning the general strategy, someone else can look for the answers to questions 3+4 lol, but again a computer would probably answer them very well.

"certainly, your king is less safe on the queenside. its not hard for white to open lines on the queenside, while its rather strained for you to force open lines on the kingside (you might hope for exf, but its always possible that white jsut gives you that pawn...and advanced his own attack). it might makes the game mroe interesting, but overall I think it creates more danger for you than him. also, you have more pieces sorta clustered around on the queensdie that may be vulnerable to getting knocked around when he advances there."

Strange, since castling queenside around here is one of the most popular ideas (according to opening theory!) against a3 ideas by white. In order to really open lines on the queenside white has to give up the center with dxc5, and black in the game could have undermined it better and gained space quicker if he had played ...g5 and ...g4, when black has dynamic play against the center and more space on the kingside to compensate for his own problems. It's a dynamic situation.

In fact last time I checked white doesn't try dxc5 usually in that particular position, though he sometimes does in similar ones. I mean after 10 b4 Be7, 11 Bf4 seems to be met by ...g5, and Re1 by maybe just ...Qc7. It looks hard for white to hold his center. I guess he could try giving it up with exf6 and maybe thinking about c4 (which could probably be met by ...d4 if needed), but I still think black should be happy with the position in the center he gets.

Well the reason why it's risky for white is that he gives up his center, so that attack better succeed (and the attack white has looks far from clear since there are so few pieces ready to attack, even if his pawns are).

Alright, I'll just call it double edged. Now I remember what black's supposed to play. It's ...c4 first (before ...0-0-0) and if white ever plays b4 or b3 black just takes en passant and he's the one with weaknesses to work with on the queenside. Black then focuses on a combination of kingside play and attack against e5, in addition to playing for control of the c file with ...Kb8 and ...Rc8.

I wonder how people can call the french boring with games like this.

And I forgot to say, this was a cool game! Especially the multiple attacks at the end even though it wasn't necessarily totally accurate.

32. Rfc1

was probably his biggest mistake. He didn't need to protect it fully. And he might have done well to initiate an attack here. But perpetual check was probably inevitable.

Thanks to both of you for all the ideas, its really helpful!

Elubas was right, computer analysis gives a pretty grim story (for black) from move 25:

After 30.Kf2, there's no mate, but I did not play accurately in any case (30...Rg2+ is better).

It had gotten better by the end of the game (32.Be2 is about +0.99), and Qe2 simply repeats moves.

Estragon, ...f6 is regarded as a fully playable move by opening theory...

...f6 is effective enough and I've seen strong players use an early ...f6 in ...Qb6 lines (I'm not sure if it's it at this exact moment, but I think it is). I mean how can you say ...f6 doesn't give anything for white to worry about? And Bf4 is taken away due to the queen on b6. Because white wasted some time with a3, ...f6 is more justified, even if not best.

I think ...Nh6 may be more popular but opening theory does not consider 6 ...f6 to be "just wrong", more like "unclear". Another intereting early ...f6 french position is 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 c5 4 c3 Nf6 5 Nf3 Bd7 6 Be2 f6. Most of the time ...Ne7 is played first (involving a maneouver to g6 or f5), but playing ...f6 right away has it's advantages, and I started to prefer playing the ...f6 line to ...Ne7 because black has more chances to dynamically win the center.