Moving a Pawn Twice in the Opening

So which evaluations do you disagree with?

I agree with everything that's been said.

I think Black has the advantage after this sequence

In this sequence [which I have run across several times]

Rumo75  I am not trying to hurry you at all, but it is your move isn't it?

I post this only because I may have missed one of your moves.

Sometimes I have to work and sometimes I have to sleep. 16...Be6 17.Bxb7 Bxc4 should be sufficient.

1. e4 d5 2. e5>>

That's just ***really*** bad play by white, who just gave black an advance caro-kann, which is dead even in normal circumstances, except that here, black has an entire extra move, meaning he is in effect playing a reversed caro as white. Black has no need to play c5 so soon and he can just develop. I would quite favour Bf5, e6, Ne7, Nd7, followed by c5 only then, as in the advance caro with a move in hand. Terrible for white.

This is the first time I have seen this main line in the Albin. The first time I faced Ne7 - Ng6 I held the extra pawn by Bf4, gave it back at the right time and won, but it was a very difficult game. Another time I tried the same approach, didn't get it right and lost and after that I played more normally. Looking at this Na3 line, my instinct is that it is definitely better for white but not a forced win. I imagine a computer might put it at +0.35. I'm going to play it next time I get that sequence. I like it. It has sufficient variations to keep black guessing.

I thought of the 9. Na3 idea years ago when preparing for my exhibition game vs the very strong team. However they never played into this line.

 9. Ba3 is quite complicated. Many defenses and many lines for both sides.

Rumo75  My apologies. I know people/players have to sleep and go to work. I am not trying to hurry you.

Rumo75 is right that lack of development is the key issue here. It may be correct for both sides to move pawns several times in the opening so long as the position is closed where extra development isnt as important. For example:

<<We have now transposed to a mainline classical french.>>

Black is a move behind so it's a French structure but not a French.

The position is identical with an extra move taken to reach the position for both sides ( white took 2 moves to play f4 and black took 2 moves to play c5). Black is not a move behind white.

Not a problem. :) Looks like we have a forced sequence here: 18...Bxf2+ 19.Kxf2 Bxf1 20.Qxf1 Rb8.

Maybe on second thoughts I'll junk that line for white against the Albin. Yes it's probably better for white, but the win looks very uncertain. Better to take black out of book.

The idea behind f4 is to support e5 (which cramps black somewhat, and allows white to have a potential kingside attack), so that if trades occur on d4 the e5 pawn is not weak. White scores 41% vs black's 28% in the chess.com database with over 3600 recorded games from this position. Parimarjan Negi gave some good coverage on the classical french as part of his repertoire book for white, and I highly recommend it. If you are interested it is called "1. e4 vs The French, Caro-Kann & Philidor".

I think white does have a nice edge here, a reliable += with zero chance to lose is nothing to spit at. If you're looking for more than that, try 5.a3. That's what strong grandmasters usually play these days.