Hello Everyone,
I seem to have rather poor results against the QGA simply because I don`t see it often, and thus find myself struggling to remember some of the sharp variations when it actually does appear in a game. I like the positions after 3.e4 (as recommended by Schandorff), though from a practical perspective, why give Black the option to play 2...dxc4 if I don`t have to?
My repertoire against 1...d5 is based on Schandorff`s book, though instead of the QGD exchange variation, I play the Catalan, using a mixture of Bologan and Avrukh. Thus, after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 I always play 3.Nf3 anyways, so perhaps switching to a 2.Nf3 move order is not such a problem...
Black has stuff like 2.Bg4 and 2.Nd7, with the idea of taking on c4 and playing Nb6 to hold the pawn, but I really cannot imagine these lines actually posing a threat to White and they are unlikely to even occur in an OTB game.
My concern, however, is the following line, which was recently pointed out to me: 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 dxc4 when if I go for a Catalan with 4.g3 Black can play 4...Nc6, meeting 5.Bg2 with e5 followed by a good game (I am going purely by memory here, so correct me if I am wrong). Thus maybe White has to go for a quieter line of the QGA anyways with 4.e3, which is probably less work than allowing all of Black's replies to the QGA after 3.e4 (as well as the Albin),though I am not sure if it appeals to me...
What are your thoughts on this move order? Is it worth it from a practical point of view?
Cheers!
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