QGD Exchange Variation

     This opening used to be a favorite of Reshevsky and he scored many wins with it by using the Minority Attack and in the process making things look easy, so naturally I used to use it a lot. Unfortunately my games weren’t as slick as Rehevsky’s.
     However, White has more than one way to play the positions arising from the Exchange Variation.  He can play a central advance with f2-f3 followed by e2-e4 or he can castle Q-side and play for a K-side attack.
     While chances are balanced, Black is usually more or less forced to use his superior activity to launch a piece attack on White's K as the long-term chances in the QGD Exchange structure favor White. Black will often pay an early …Ne4 so that after the N is exchanged and his P on d5 lands on e4, the change in P-structure alters the strategy.
     It was the Minority Attack that always interested me but as I said, unlike Reshevsky, I could never get it to work out because my opponents never seemed to have any trouble meeting it and I ended up with a lot of draws. In this game things were, according to Houdini 2, nearly dead equal until Black shot himself in the foot with 29…c4.