This position comes from an OTB game I played today. I was white, and black just played 19...Qf4. It's what to play now, what would you do? This isn't a tactics puzzle of any kind. I'm just curious to hear how y'all would look at this position and what your general or specific plan would be. I had a hard time coming up with concrete ideas for white.

Im worse than you but Im giving it a shot anyway:

The first thing I would do is see if we have a checkmate which we dont because after Nf6+ Nxf6 Qxh7+ Nxh7 and we arent going anywhere

He doesnt have a check or a good capture either so then I would look at his threats which could be Nf6 with the objective to get our pawn blockade out of Nd4 ( Nf6 Nxf6 Rxf6 Nh5 Qxf2) ( if we dont capture the knight then Nxd4 Nxd4 Raf1). While black threats look preety annoying I dont see an inmediate win for black so I would analyze our own captures and threats.

white captures: Nxd6 which doesnt lead anywhere.
white threats: Ne2 Nh5 Qe3 Qd2. While white would like to trade queens in this position we need to be careful because if we capture his queen on f4 then he can recapture with his pawn attacking our knight and the b2 pawn at the same time( and if we do Rb1 then he can just retreat his bishop because his b6 pawn is protected by the c7 pawn).

Qe3 Nf6 Qxf4 exf4 Nxf6 Bxf6 Ne2 Bxb2 Rb1 Be5. Qd2 doesnt do much better.

We have to analyze Ne2, he cant capture my knight, he cant intersect my attack because Im attacking him with a knight, he cant support his queen either so he either has to counter ( he doesnt have a good counter either) so he is forced to move his queen( to Qh4, Qh6 or Qf5).

Anyway since I dont have a clear tactical gain I would analyze the position.

Our king is in the center and there are a bunch of pieces in the board including the queen so castling has to be analyzed. He doesnt have an attack right away so we are back to his Nf6 but the difference is that now Qxe4 after Nxe4 is an option because my f-pawn is protected.

The other option is castling long but I would need to get his queen out of her diagonal to do so. And we are back analyzing our threats from before.

Ne2 Qh6 Qd2 Qxd2 Nxd2 Nf6

The problem with exchanging everything is that he has a slightly better pawn structure because our f pawn is much weaker than his e pawn( we would have to go for an f4 here I guess).

Then I would analyze the pieces. I think black has one piece too many because his knight is just blocking his rooks ( and if it goes to Nf6 it will block the rook anyway) so he probably wants to exchange it for our knight.

Our pieces are not doing much because our rooks are not very strong. We can put a rook on a strong g file. The main problem with castling short is that our rooks are going to be weak imo.

I like Ne2 to be honest. Qh6 can be replied with Rg1 as well. Im working under the assumption we are slighty worse here and we wouldnt mind a draw.

I'd start with 20. Ne2. I think we'd have a slight plus in any endgames if 20.-Qf3, and I want to dislodge Black's queen castle queenside, and although Black "frees" the bishop "with a tempo" in lines like 20.-Qf5 21. 0-0-0 Bh6+ 22. Kb1, that doesn't look particularly dangerous.

20. Rg1 Kh8 could be inserted, but I think keeping the king on g8 looks more flexible -- Nxf6 coming with check might be useful in some lines.

Although we have the same move proposal I'm curious as to why you prefer Qf5 over Qh6 as black reply.The first move gives white a chance to activate his rooks right away.

I don't really have a preference, nor did my post specify one.

I supposed its Qf5 given you analyzed white reply to it. Which move do you prefer anyway ? Do you agree with my reasoning ?

I want some rooks on the g-file. Rg1, Ke2+Rag1 or Kd1-c2 all seem like ideas. I'd probably start with Rg1. I wouldn't consider Rg1 Kh8 to be an useful insertion for Black.

Depends a lot on the clocks. If I was up 30 seconds to 20 seconds then I'd start by looking at Nf6+ followed by Qh7+ as time winning sacrificial ideas. Premature on move 19, but valuable if I can run the clock down a bit more first. Nh5 and Rg1 also make a lot of sense, and are probably more playable now. Of course I flagged in the time it took me to type that out...

Wait...

Oh you said this was on OTB game! Not bullet...

20. Qe3 looks good too. All blacks pieces are awful, and hard to get activated. e.g. Qxe3 21. fxe3 Nf6 22. Ng5 and the knight still isn't going anywhere, whereas white can slowly increase pressure on the kingside.

I appreciate the feedback from everyone. These types of positions are my worst -- those in that there isn't one single (or even two) clear strategic plan or forcing attack, so I often lose the way. Helpful commentary from everyone, thank y'all.

Grunching.

My first thought is moving knights around to see if there is some sort of mate or winning tactic. I don't see one.

Honestly, forget having trouble with a concrete plan for white. I don't see a plan for black at all. So I feel I have time to play Ke2, Rag1 followed by a potential h4-h5-h6 thrust, or doubling of the rooks. It seems to me white can just keep his knights in their super solid configuration until he has everything else set the way he wants it.

Honestly, I feel the white king will actually be relatively safe on e2 as black doesn't seem to have any real avenues for attack. This way I can have my rooks on the g and h files potentially for an h-pawn advance.

I haven't looked at the earlier replies.

After a few minutes of thought, maybe Kd1-c2, followed by Rf1. I think the position is about equal - White is very safe, but it's hard to create threats. Maybe just generally improving the position of the pieces will cause Black to make an error.

at a semiquick glance id consider ke2, then getn that a-rook 2 the right

Complete newb but what is wrong with Nh5 ?

Imo, white almost have a wining endgame knight vs bishop.

I would start exchange queens with qd2 , if he does not just castle big and you should have a pretty strong attack.

Qd2 help to play eventually pretty quickly ng5 aiming at e6
(Qd2 qf3, Ng5 wins )
(Qd2 Qh4, Qg5 seem ok too to reach an favorable endgame)

Black's g7 bishop is bad and we don't want to trade it, so Nh5 seems too rash.
I'd say the position is slightly better for White, definitely easier to play.