first thought: he didnt flip the board .
second thought: lots of spoilers going on right now

With regards to the game, I think Be3 is my best choice so I can castle and prepare an attack with Qc2.

Chances are he will go for cxd4 and then I will do Bc4, then he will do something ( Im guessing Nbd7) and then I will castle unless he goes for a direct threat( this would be h6).

I dont really have a plan other than develop minor pieces and castle at this point.

Btw after each move I get this from the chessvideo.tv diagram generator: The image is already permanently stored on our servers!
Just use the code snippets we have provided to link to it!

This means we are still in the book, Im going to let you know once I no longer get that message.

This doesn't mean what he thinks it means, lol. I wonder when he'll come to that realization on his own?

I just noticed the coordinates on my board are messed up. I'll change it.

The obvious move, which I think is standard in this position, is dxc4, followed by Bxc4 b5 and black has space on the queenside as compensation for white's plusses.

Ne4 leads to a lot more quick bloodshed. If he takes the bishop first, then I can play Nxc3 and we've got our suicide exchanges that leave me up a pawn.

If he plays Nxe4 then it's dxe4/Bxe7 Qxe7/Bxe4 and we're still even materially, with white having the better bishop and black owning the queenside. The same thing happens after Bxe4. That's probably objectively better for white, but I've had some luck with queenside pawn advances in this position and I wouldn't terribly mind playing that sort of game.

Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead. If I'm miscalculating and this drops a pawn we can all have a good laugh.

I don't see where this pawn up is coming from.

When he first mentioned it, I thought maybe it was if there was a pawn on e4, but I can't really make sense of the given notation (when considering 4...e6):

I'm sorry if it's just me that's missing something, but I'm just not understanding all that's being discussed.

EDIT: though I now see in the last quote, Kyle meant Qd2 and Nxd2, not d7, but that doesn't solve all the confusion.

I'm also not counting pawns the same way Kyle is... I get 8. Nxe4 dxe4 9. Bxe7 Qxe7 10. Bxe4 as leaving white up a pawn, not materially even. And in the 8. Bxe7 Nxc3 line I don't see any way the exchanges don't even out in the end? is Kyle somehow forgetting that Ne4 didn't actually capture anything? Or thinking that he already played dxe4 somehow? I don't understand...

I do know though that I always drop pawns from ideas that I thought were fine when I'm black in these types of positions (it's why I hate playing against d4), and Kyle and I seem to be very similar chessplayers stylistically, so based on that I guess if he does drop a pawn it won't seem weird to me. It's probably what I would do!

Edit: Or wait, does 10. ... Qb4+ save the pawn and even thins back up in the first line?

certainly wasnt expecting that, I will have to put up a board for this one.

Candidates moves for now are: Bxe7, Nxe4, Bxe4.

The line can be Bxe7, Qxe7, Nxe4, dxe4, Bxe4 and Im up a pawn.
Bxe7,Nxc3, Bxc3, Nxd1 Rxd1, Rxd8 and we are even in material.

Nxe4, Bxg5,Ndxg5 and I win a piece.
Nxe4, dxe4, Bxe7, Qxe7, Bxe4 and I win a pawn

Bxe4, xe4, bxe7, Qxe7, Nxe4 and I win a pawn
Bxe4, Bxg5 and I dont really win anything so Im going with Nxe4.

Other options for black after my move is a check but I can do Nc3 and it wont matter that Im protecting the bishop with one less piece because black is attacking with one less piece as well.

The move is permanently served in the chess server so Im probably falling for a trap or something

Qb4+ does regain the pawn, but it leaves black underdeveloped and with few winning chances: his B problem is unsolved and he's not ready for any c5/e5 break. Kyle should look at the Lasker if he wants to pursue the Ne4 plan.

As white, there's a choice: keep the c4 pawn or b2 pawn by blocking the check with N or Q. I think I'd vote for keeping the c4 pawn as Qxb2 drags the Q away from anything useful (and Qc4 blocks castling).

White will also have a free tempo from Qc2/Qd3 hitting h7 with Q+B. Hard to like how this is already going for black.

it's a shame there is no way to quite make Bxh7+ work (after Qb4 stuff) because Kf1 Qxc4 is check. But yeah this looks awful for Black, and it's a really terrible move to make in a correspondence game where you can easily check all of the variations. It looks like he hasn't even seen as far as Qb4+, he just thinks he is going to be up a pawn or level when it clearly isn't true

8. ... dxe4
9. Bxe7 Qxe7
10. Bxe4 Qb4+

all pretty much forced at this point.

11. Qd2 is better for white, but 11. Nd2 is also an option.

11. Qd2 Qxc4

Material is even, white has an advantage because it's going to take black a ton of tempos to get his pieces into useful spots from here. It's been my experience that players around my level rarely do anything too horrible to me in the time it takes me to unwind from here and we play on from this. Then again, players at my level usually do something bad given all those options in the center, and he hasn't done that yet.

Alternate line

11. Nd2 Qxb2
12. o-o Qb6 just to keep from getting trapped

Then I guess I'll probably have to get around to actually using some of them pieces they put in front of me to start the game. Will have to move some pawns to do it. I know, I know, really in-depth analysis there.

On the one hand, he was accounting for Qb4+ to get the pawn back, so didn't actually mis-evaluate the material count of the position when he called material even in this line. So that's good. On the other hand I'm more than a little concerned by the implication that he has played this line before, and still entered it voluntarily:

Seems to me that the development disadvantage after 11. ... Qxc4 is so extreme that I'd almost rather be behind the pawn, and if I'd ever gotten that position in a game before I'd be making SURE I never wound up there again. I certainly wouldn't play into that position in correspondence when I had seen it before. If Kyle considers it a playable position worth entering voluntarily, he probably needs to work a bit more on his evaluation skills...

another thing they both missed was after Ne4 Bxe7 Nxc3? (they both give this but Qxe7 is necessary, probably transposing to the game) White has Bxh7+ forcing Kh8 bxc3 Qxe7 Bd3 when White really does have an extra pawn and the better development

Okay, so this game has made me realize I need a new plan for d4.

My current plan is as follows

1) Play Slav
2) Play it in the safest, boringest way possible.
3) Whine internally a lot about how slow and boring the game is
4) Play something wild and unsound in the name of "opening things up" and assume opponent will make mistake.

Granted, counting on an exploitable mistake isn't always a stretch at this level (though maybe in the equivalent of correspondence chess it's not all that great).

So I'm fiddling around with some other ideas. I won two games today against opponents a little below my level with this today:

1. d4 d5
2. c4 c6
3. Nc3 dxc4

And just dare them to win the pawn back.

But really, a better solution than "find a better opening" is "play the damn board in front of you the best you can instead of throwing a tantrum because you can't play the fun new Sicilian theory you learned."

I'm not sure about the "dare them to win the pawn back" part (since really, black shouldn't be trying to hold on to it) but yes, playing "correct" opening moves generally makes one's life easier.

I've recently started playing around with the Slav as black, and I haven't found it that boring, although in the lines where black plays dxc4, sometimes the play does seem a little dry. For example, I'm usually trying pretty hard to play for e5 rather than c5 in an effort to avoid a symmetric pawn structure (with open files on the d&c files) but this isn't always possible.

Of course, the other option (after 3.Nc3) is to move into the semi-slav and just to play a slightly more standard variation there. This is not an opening which suffers from the reputation of being boring...

I guess you won't see this reply for a while though...

Early dxc4 lines are some of the sharpest lines in the Slav. The noteboom in particular is very dynamic with play all over the board. And if white is unwilling to enter the noteboom then black can indeed try to hold onto the pawn.

Kyle mentioned the position after:
1. d4 d5
2. c4 c6
3. Nc3 dxc4

I wasn't thinking of the Noteboom, but rather the sort of independent lines that can arise from here. You're completely correct that Black can (and does) try and hold the pawn for a bit, although I usually think of that less as trying to hold the pawn, and more just preventing White from developing smoothly. But definitely a mistake on my part, and I might be thinking of Black's overall strategic goal in that position the wrong way as well :-)

Missed a chance he has to get his pawn back. Things are getting messy, after Bxe7 he can go for Qa5+ but I have b4. But after Qxe7 and I do Bxe4 he can do Qb5+, then I will do Qd2 , if we exchange queen its going to be his turn to move with no Bishop or Knight developed and his pawns getting in the way albeit having castled already. Anyway Im to think whether I should take the e pawn or not so Im going to do it later, Im thinking I should.

I'll just leave this here...

After a complex analysis I realized that if I dont capture the e4 pawn, black is going to take a piece .
Qb4+ seems obvious and then I plan on doing Qd2 and then Qc2.

Spoiler goes here and here and here and here and here

Nd2 would be nice if it worked, but provoking f5 doesn't seem to achieve much. After 11. Qd2 Qxc4 12.Ne5 White is definitely for choice.

First check of the game . Anyway four options here, moving the king seems a bad idea. ( Qxc4+ and gains a tempo)
Qd2 leads to Qc4 and then Qc2 which seems necessary given I cant castle and doing Rc1 leads to Qxa1.
The other option is Nd2 which leads to Qxb2 then 0-0.

Anyway I think I can give Kyle the following situation.



or



I think the second scenario looks better for me because in the first one my knight has to get away from the centre.