I'm a little concerned that my previous analysis in this thread indicates that I have entered a period of cognitive decline in life. Rb8 as a candidate move in that position? Seriously?
But OK, a more sober assessment is that the moves to consider here are Ne5 and Bb7. And if you accidentally grabbed the rook, Ra7 is the only square that makes sense (on b8 it's just a target for Bf4).
Ne5 would be great if it netted the bishop on f3. After: 8...Ne5 9.d4 Nxf3+ 10.Nxf3 Nxd5 Black is pretty happy.
A pleasant dream.
But a fly in the ointment there is that White does not have to meekly concede the bishop pair. Simply 9. Be2 and I actually don't see a great continuation for Black. (Other than repeating with Ned7.) The problem is that Black can't capture on d5 because after 9...Nxd5 10.Nxd5 Qxd5 11.Bf3 skewers the queen and rook. So I guess 9...Bb7 is the correct continuation. Let's hold that position for a moment:
Diagram A
(Adding this for later: after 10.d4 Ned7 [what else?] 11.Bf3 [+alternatives] Nb6 12.d6 [+alternatives] Bxf3 13.Nxf3 e6 we reach:
Diagram B
)
If we look at 8...Bb7 (renewing the threat of b5-b4) then 9.d6 looks like White's most forcing continuation (9.d4 is an alternative in light of what follows*), but after 9...Bxf3 10.Nxf3 e6 Black has the better structure, more space, and better development. What's not to love?
Diagram C
Now go back and look at
B -- and White can definitely improve on his play in that line. So if the best Black can hope for after Ne5 is that White makes some inaccuracies to reach a position similar to after playing Bb7 (except possibly for a misplaced Black knight?) that seems to suggest that Bb7 is the more accurate move order.
The last thing to consider is whether White's alternatives to 8...Ne5 9.Be2 are any good -- maybe Black allows the possibility of repetition once, just to see if White deviates (in what we consider to be a significantly worse way). The problem with that line of thought is that maybe White can improve on Bf3...the alternatives there don't look like anything special, but they don't look worse than Bf3...I'll save it until the post-mortem to wonder if White had planned Be2 after Ne5, or what alternatives to Bf3 he had in mind. (I can't remember the annotator, maybe Chris Ward, maybe it's a common joke, about repeating once "just to show who's boss" although it's also a reasonable tactic to move closer to time control. Here, neither seems like a good motivation.)
*Here, b4 is possible, and probably best. But unfortunately, it looks like this entire line is probably better [for White] than the d6 line...which complicates things, to say the least. Which makes sense -- White should be playing for speedy development here, and trying to prevent Black from playing e6 and castling into safety. With that in mind, something like 9. d4 b4 10.Ne4 Nxd5 11.Bg5 is pretty annoying (prevents e6, threatens Nd6+)
I think Black is OK there (Qb6+e6 should hold everything together) but for current purposes, I'm happy to note that 10...Nxe4 11.Bxe4 Nf6 is a completely safe alternative. Maybe also a better alternative, but we're going to wait for that position to show up on the board to decide. Hopefully I don't regret that.
So the move is Bb7. I can't believe that took so much work. I do feel pretty good about the analysis above, but there's no way I can spend this much time on moves going forward. OTB I probably play ...Ne5 after 15 seconds of thought, so hopefully ...Bb7 is actually the superior option.