1. Who has the advantage?

2. Is it a dynamic or static advantage?

3. What is White's short-term plan?

4. How will he achieve this plan?

5. Given 2 and 4, what should Black do?

This means that natural, slow moves, like Rac8 or Bf6, are failboats

I honestly just have no clue what to do in this position so I'll just go through your spoilers and ramble on:

1. I think white is certainly better here. The seemingly silly move e5 already looks quite annoying for black, not only threatening to claim more central space - but the dark squares around black's king are a little loose and taking control of f6 even opens up some potential for kingside pressure. And it also creates lots of central targets as well.

And white has a ton of possibilities as well as space and better pieces.

2. Silman huh? I'd say both. White's pieces are more active which is dynamic, the spacial advantage is static.

3. My problem is I see too many plans for white here. He has the possibility of playing on every part of the board. He has possibilities of kingside, queenside and central play!

4. Black needs to act fast for sure or he's going to get crushed soon. I don't like e5 as after Nd3/Be3/Rc1 black is getting suffocated. Nc5 just provokes the e5 push that I was already eyeing for white.

Okay, after looking for a little longer Bg5 ideas seem strong. Black gets rid of white's pieces in exchange for a rather lame piece, starts alleviating the cramping problems due to lack of space and his knight has the potential to become very strong very fast as well as gaining the ability to counter attack hard against white's center. So it's just a matter of preparing something as after the immediate Bg5 Nd3 looks quite good for white.

Ok, took a break, drink a few beers and I'm back now. Looking at this board with fresh, albeit drunken, eyes e5 seems obviously best. Earlier I missed the cute line of e5 Nd3 Nc5! Now Nxe5 Bf6 seems quite nice for black, and Nxc5 Bxc5 is obviously great for black. So since position seems unpleasant for white after Nd3, e5 seems clearly best.

Black's queen is screwing up White's queenside development something fierce. He can't move his bishop or connect his rooks until he takes care of the b-pawn, and his e-pawn is attacked by the queen, too.

Basically that queen is a monster now. But it might not be in a few more moves.

Keeping white's queenside blocked up was one of the ideas behind e5, since Nd3/etc is one of the best ways for white to reorganize his queenside, and my idea of e5 with Nc5 seems to bust that. I'm quite curious what his recommendation is now!

As an aside, that was also one of the points of Bg5 stuff

in the game, play continued
... e5?
Nd3 f6
Ne1


Now White can complete his development, because the semi-closed center means that development is not so critical.


White's plan, if unopposed, is to trade the annoying queen away with Qd3, or at least force it to move or be replaced with a rook. Therefore:

... Nc5! prevents Qd3 and also forces white to defend the e-pawn.

A possible continuation would be
... Nc5
Re1 e5
Nh5 f5

With the active center, black takes advantage of white's undeveloped queenside.
or
... Nc5
e5 d6

Now the center is busted open which benefits black.

After Nc5, like I mentioned the simple e5 push seems incredibly good for white. I just double checked it with a computer and it is perfectly sound. I doubt a strong player would miss a move like e5 since it's pretty much the first candidate move for white imo.. so I'm not sure what's up?

My idea of e5 with Nc5! accomplishes the exact same things, but works!