Has anyone dabbled with:


The idea is very simple: White threatened to 'lock up' the Queenside with Nb5; 
For now this is stopped, as both a4 (which one can actually take here, unlike in ..Qa5 lines, due to the Rook being able to capture first) and e4 are being attacked twice.
With the Nc3 stuck in place, a4 becomes "just a weakness"; since her majesty is also eyeing c3 and b2, White's entire queenside just looks frozen in place to me?!
 
The queen obviously seems to be in a rather dangerous spot there, but before White can start bothering her, he has to to fortify three lone pawns - which should give black plenty time to eg centralize his knights, generating counterplay? 

I'm most definitely neither a good enough player nor sufficiently well-versed in engine analysis to add much to the discussion, but this looked like the by far most logical move to me - curious whether it just got overlooked, or I missed the reason for it being an insufficient try.

E: For the reasons listed, 13.Qc2 seems like a better try for white to me; defending a4, controlling b3, and not giving up protection of the b2-pawn after an eventual Bd2; 
Though I still believe that ..Qb6-Qb4 should be fine? 
Really interested in what I'm blind for in this position!

With regards to the second game after 17.g4, is there anything wrong with 17...g5, e.g. these games:





It's interesting in that the Black player is the same, but one appears to be an OTB game, and the other is is CC game. 

Totally agree - hence my comment. I dug these games out of an e-mail I sent to Nikos when he was writing the newsletter and lazily glanced at the ratings - most of which are in the 2300's.

I should have been more careful with the label "high level" - I'm assuming that with a rating over 2000 people are using a computer and investing some time. My experience on ICCF is that the people who aren't using computers are quickly dispatched and in the range of ~1700. I haven't run into many that fall into this category though.

I analyzed this line a little over a year ago when it's popularity and publicity was spiking, and the line that Tay's offering up is the best that I could find as well. There are a few other high level CC games that are worth looking at - they might be in his notes, I didn't check:

After 12...Ra6 13. Qc2 Qa8 14.Ra3 there is also the option of 14...Rb8 as given in the QC newsletter (Ametanoitos). 

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Newsletter017July2013.pgn ;

The 7...Qa5 concept is interesting so I guess I will go for the Kindle option even though I have the book...

Ps.
14. Ra3 is not covered in the forum article in NIC YB 108.   

To see what is wrong with this idea for black, compare the positions after move 11 in these two lines.

Black has swapped Bxf1 for Qa5. Qa5 is a reasonable move to have in of course, but not always best and that bishop certainly can't stay on a6 (or b7) for ever. Fairly neutral overall.

However, White has managed Rb1 and Rhf1 for free, and doesn't have the latent weaknes on the a8/h1 diagonal that sometimes motivate h3, Kg1, Kh2 instead. The Bd3 could maybe turn annoying later too and if black plays the logical Bxd3 at some point soon, white looks to be another development tempo up on normal.

None of these are massive problems perhaps but it is entirely unobvious how it might qualify as an improvement for black You need some good, concrete reasons for it.