Which side would your rather have?

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Hammerschlag
[COMMENT DELETED]
PrawnEatsPrawn

Looks like a draw, Black should be able to liquidate one of your b-pawns after activating his Rook with  27. .... Rc8.

Kasabiian

black....technically a draw but personally i wouldnt want to defend doubled isolated pawns and a k-side minority in a blitz endgame

eaglex

i think the best way to handle the albin counter gambit is to just take actually dxe5

Kasabiian

yep.. wasnt going to mention as its personal opening choice but id go with 3.dxe5..

Hammerschlag
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eaglex

3.dxe5 d4 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.g3 then 3 moves for black Bg4/Be6/or Nge7

Shakaali

I believe white is just tiny bit better in the final position but it might be difficult to generate any real winning chances. One particular problem is white's weak back rank which among other things makes 27... Rc8!? possible without allowing Rxa7.

I make some further observations about the game. As pointed above 3. dxe5 is the mainline but maybe 3. e3 is not that bad. After 4. exd4 we have a standard position from the French (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. c4) which may not be considered theoretically that challenging for black but is nevertheless fully playable.

5. Be2 may not be a mistake but 5. Nc3 looks much more natural and flexible: c3 is almost certainly the best square for the knight whereas the bishop has many options (it might go to d3 or directly to c4 after dxc4 by black or after cxd5 by white). I don't really see any reason not to play 6. Bxc4. Later on the black pawn on c4 can cause lot of trouble. I think 8. f4? really puts white into trouble. This move may look agressive but infact it's mainly a weakening of the a7-g1 diagonal and e3-square in particular (as you learned later in the game). Instead you should probably try to complete your development as fast as possible with Nf3 and 0-0.

Your comments seem quite accurate to me. In particular you are probably correct about 19... a6 and 22... Nd7 being improvements for black. I believe that black had a sizeable advantage before these inacuracies.

TheOldReb
eaglex wrote:

3.dxe5 d4 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.g3 then 3 moves for black Bg4/Be6/or Nge7


 Why not  4 e4 !? 

Hammerschlag
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Shakaali
Hammerschlag wrote:

 How should White continue after 27)...Rc8?

I was thinking that Kg1 might be best? Bringing the King into play and getting rid of the back rank weakness.


28. Kg1 was also my first reaction. Bringing the King closer to centre is usually a good idea in an ending. I think one could use a quite a bit of time analysing this position but below is just one possible variation I cooked up in a hurry (so approach with cautionWink).