Quote:
Originally Posted by RoundTower
I guess you get a wing gambit without the e-pawn committed to e4.
I think the e-pawn should end up on e4 anyway. The setup with the pawns on e3, d4 (and c3) makes White's dark-square bishop too bad for a position where White needs space and initiative to compensate for the sacrificed pawn.
The situation is different in the Nimzo-Larsen attack 1. Nf3 c5 2. b3 d5 3. e3, an offbeat but solid variation where White doesn't sac a pawn and his DSB can enjoy decent scope despite the pawn being on e3 initially because White can either put the pawn on d3 or exchange it for Black's c5 pawn (as the b3 one prevents c5-c4; White can recapture with the e-pawn if cxd4 is played).
Another possible idea is to put pressure on Black's center with Bb5 (preventing e7-e5) followed by c4, delaying the development of Queen's knight in order to give the b2 bishop control over the dark central squares.
E.g. 3... Nf6 4. Bb2 Nc6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. Bxc6 Bxc6 7. Ne5 Rc8 8. d3.
5... e6 6. c4 Bd6 7. Bxf6 Qxf6 8. Nc3 d4 9. Ne4 Qe7 10. exd4 cxd4 11. Nxd4.
8... Qg6 9. cxd5 exd5 10. O-O Bh3 11. Ne1 leads to a bizarre position
, Black has some compensation for the pawn.
Those lines are of course not set in stone, they've been pulled out of my head to show what ideas (c4, Bxc6, Bxf6) White has in general.
It's not that White is much better here than in the Wing gambit, probably by 0.2-0.3 of a pawn, but I'm more comfortable playing an attack with equal material and decent positional ideas, even a hypermodern one, than a gambit.