Chess forum by Grandmasters

Scotch Bc5 line with Nf6, early 7...a5

Good day! Saw one game from the Lithuanian chess league between FMs using chessmood line, but black played very interesting early a5. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Nb3 Bb6 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.Qe2 CM recommended intending Be3/Bg5 with 0-0-0 and now black played 7...a5!? white responded 8.e5, but 8...0-0! and now if exf6 then a4! winning the piece back. In the webinars of opening mistakes I saw one idea that against a5 we play a3, but that happens after white already 0-0-0. So how should white react to this early 7...a5!? Is this a novelty for black? Thank you. P.S. In the database I see that GMs Malakhov, Eljanov, Fressinet used this move, also Carlsen played it once, so must be good move for black

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What is the problem with 8. a4 and then the "standard" setup - Be3/g5 and 0-0-0? Is there a concern re king safety after a4? A drawback of a7-a5 might be that black needs to capture on e3 after Be3 since there is no more axb6 opening the a-file for the rook.

I'm curious if you're running the engine on positions like this? Is it bad form to post engine analysis in the forum? FWIW, I'm running Stockfish 14.1 NNUE on this position. 8.a4 is consistently the top move thru the various depths. Up to depth 37 so far and a4 is the only move that scores above 0.00. I agree it's a little unusual to play a4 prior to castling long, but compromises must be made sometimes!

@ Paulius Juknis 8.a4 should transpose to the lines considered in the course.

Hi Paulius,

The a5 move you mentioned is super-super advanced. I will just say that a4 is the best and its playable position. We might record that move in the future though if we record all of the GM analysis our courses will become 100 hours each. The most important for us is to provide material that is easy and comfortable to learn and play for our Pro-Members.

Good luck!

Hi would like to share a game I just played. https://www.chess.com/game/live/44717440807 After I played our move Nb3, in less than 1 second my opponent immediately played a5. So remembering this thread, I played a4. Certainly the both of us didn't play the best after that but if Black makes "routine" Scotch moves like Qf6, if we follow our general strategy he can still easily get into trouble very early on.

Hi, I think even more chalenging for white is a5 with connection 6..d6 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Nb3 Bb6 6.Nc3 d6 7. Qe2 a5 played as black by Topalov, Artemiev. Recently strong GM crushed me with idea 8.a4 Nb4! and white need to play accuratly to not lost control after long castle. My proposal is to play 7. a4!? GM Rublevsky played a few times idea to provoke a6 and then 8.Nd5 Ba7 9. or 10. Bd3 with short castle or 10. Qf3 with idea Be3-g5 and 0-0-0 I think it's new trend for black so it will be great to add something in advance section by our GMs.

Ninja Puzzle Solution Imposible?

Hi all I'm going through al 777 Ninja Puzzles and became stumped by number 333. After my best efforts , I turned on Stockfish but none of the solutions suggested work either. Anyone want to try? https://chessmood.com/quiz/the-tactic-ninja

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Why not just copy n past the problem puzzle here rather than makes members click through 332 in order to help you.

Are you talking about this position? I checked (with Stockfish, too) and there is exactly one winning move in this position and it is accepted as a solution.

We checked this in order to find the ultimate truth and there is only a solution in the puzzle 333, maybe you were referring to another one. Please see the attached picture for reference.

Spoiler: It shows the right solution.

Organizing the BlackMood Starter Course

I finished the WhiteMood starter course (which was great) and now I'm working through the BlackMood starter course. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Dutch Attack parts! I'm also working on some tactics, middle game, endgame courses, and annotated game courses. I have a recommendation for the BlackMood course, and I wonder if it would help anyone else. Instead of one 2-hour section on the French Attack, could you break it down into smaller sections? I feel like this would make this a bit more consistent with the other courses including the WhiteMood starter course. Here is how I organized it for myself: - Section 1 - Introduction (current introduction videos 1-4) - Section 2 - French Attack - Advance Variation (videos 1-19, 38 minutes) - Section 3 - French Attack - Exchange Variation (videos 20-32, 32 minutes) - Section 4 - French Attack - Tarrasch Variation (videos 33-38, 13 minutes) - Section 5 - French Attack - Other Moves (videos 39-46, 27 minutes) - Section 6 - Dutch Attack... (To be determined) Thanks ChessMood team!

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Hi Matthew, 

Yes, since this course is not yet completed, we will reorganize the sections later on. 

It is in our todo list, and this also means that Avetik has to record the introductions in order to do a good job, let him finish the Dutch attack first, everyone is waiting for it!

Thanks for your feedback!?

I saw this was updated today. Thank you! It looks great and I'm looking forward to the next set of videos.

Thanks, Matthew, for the great suggestion. 
We've uploaded the Dutch attack in the same way :) 
 

I am not ready yet to attack with the French

Hello CM Family, The last question I asked two months ago about the French Attack is unfortunately left unanswered. Guess I'll have to wait for the main course before fully embracing this opening. Reminder: Which plan/moves can be played in the following position? 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.c3 Bd6 6.Bd3 Nge7 7.O-O Bg4 8.Nbd2 Qd7 9.Re1 O-O-O 10.b4 f3?! 11.Qa4 Importantly, White spent their time developing (much like the way Caro-Kann is attacked in the WhiteMood Opening) and preparing for a queenside attack instead of weakening their castling with "h3?!". White strike first and I don't know how to react. Today, I struggle against another position in the French Attack, more precisely in the Tarrasch variation with 4.Ngf3. 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nc6!? 4.Ngf3 Nf6 5.e5 Nd7 Here Avetik explains that the Knight on d2 blocks the view of White's pieces and starts showing the plans for Black without White being able to play. Usually, I like this way of learning because it allows me to feel the position better. But recently in a blitz game for fun, a friend completely crushed my opening on this line after the following sequence: 6.Nb3 (Knight no longer blocks White's position) 6...f6 7.Bb5 (the so-called hard-to-defend e5-pawn is doing very well) 7...fxe5 8.fxe5 Be7 9.Nbd4 Nxd4 10.Nxd4 and I blundered with 10...O-O?? I wondered what satisfactory plan to apply against this White deployment: 6.Nb3 f6?! 7.Bb5 (pinning one of the Knights if the other moves) Maybe I should castle first to unpin with 6.Nb3 Be7 7.Bb5 O-O. What do you think ?

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I'm only starting the French Attack course so I can't help much there. But in your first position, I think you have a mistake as 10...f3 isn't possible. I'm assuming you meant 10...f6 as that's the most popular move according to the lichess database. The engine likes: 11...Bxf3 12. Nxf3 Ne5 13. Qxd7+ Nxd7 But it also thinks short castling is better in this position. If you had played 9...f6 10. b4 O-O, the position would be more equal. For the other game, after Nb3 the best move is a5, bringing a4 later to force the knight back; so of course white will play a4. The best move next is 7...Be7 which develops a piece and defends the g5 square, and also defends f6 if you play that. If white still plays Bb5, then the a7 square is open and you can play Na7, which also attacks the bishop and forces it to commit or retreat. In most of the games I've seen in this position, the bishop retreats. White will likely instead play something like 8. Bf4, which allows you to then play 8...f6. White will follow with 9. exf6 and you can take bak with Nxf6. You can optionally castle before playing f6. Now with a knight on f6 it gives you easy access to e4. This is just my opinion; I'm not familiar with the course so I'm sure others will give better answers.

Anti French

In the line against French opening 1. e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Bd3, dxe4 4. Bxe4, Nf6 5.Bf3 c5 6. Ne2 what if Black plays Be7 and Qc7 keeping not trading on d4. What should White do ? Thank you

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Let them do it… After 6.Be7, we just develop, healthy moves as Gabuzyan says, Nc3 could be good and then if Qc7 as you say, then just Bf4 will be good developing the bishop for free… Always think about development, healthy development and happy pieces… ?

Question regarding the black repertoire

Hi ! I hesitate to take a Pro subscription, after browsing the opening for black chapters against 1.d4 I couldn't find my answers, and I was told to ask them here : - Is there coverage of when white doesn't allow the Benko, for example starting with 2. Nf3, and if yes what is the recommendation there? - Is there coverage of the Catalan ? Have a great day

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?Rome wasn't built in a day. Mister Gaby and Mister Avetik are getting there. They have a list longer than everyones arms and it takes much work in producing their excellent videos. What you must do is not only work through the videos several times but tune in or watch later the webinars where they play the very openings they recommend which I think is unique and they do this week after week which is what you need to perfectly hone a repertoire. Remember joining ChessMood does not preclude you from looking at other material elsewhere such as Chessable which has excellent coverage of the Benko (Grover) or playing against the Catalan (Ganguly). This platform is the best out there for your buck. It's a no brainer.

You can always try for free during one week to see if you like it.? This is why we are offering the one week free trial.

Regarding your question, after 1.d4 we go for the Benko if possible, yes. In the new Blackmood opening repertoire, we are offering the Dutch Attack, which will be released next week but Avetil has been playing it in the streams for a couple of months already. 

When after d4, Nf6 White plays Nf3, we do not play e6 going for a Catalan, we play g6. This is consistent with the rest of the repertoire. After 2…g6, we can transpose to other different Chessmood courses like the d4 Sidelines, the English course, Benko, Modern Maroczy or Maroczy and also the accelerated dragon… ?
 

BlackMood Starter - Dutch

When will the pdf and pgn files be updated to include the Dutch Attack? Thanks!

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Soon my friend,? we will upload it once everything is finished and checked. In the meanwhile enjoy the Dutch course that everyone has been waiting for!

Happy learning!!! ?

Early Success at the Scotch Game

I just started going through the WhiteMood Openings course and got through the section on the Scotch Game. I'm horrible at rapid so have been losing a lot. But today I decided to practice the Scotch for the first time. I didn't get it perfect but I think I understood the basic principles. And, I was super excited when I won! Really thankful for this basic openings course and just wanted to share. Trying to share the game, hope this comes through properly.

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??May this be the first of many Scotch victories!!! ?Good luck and welcome to the Scottish family!!! ?

Good news about weekly articles

Hey, champions! 
As you know, after writing weekly articles for more than a year, we decided to make a tradeoff, and spend that time on producing more courses. 

The good news I want to share with you today is that nice tradition is coming back very soon ?
We'll bring back our weekly articles. 
We have already started writing them. 
And we're trying to write more about your pain points. 

Would love to hear your opinion, suggestions, pain points, desires and offered article topics. 

We have made a list already. I will add your suggestions there too and go one-by-one. 

Comment below please, if you have anything particular in your mind. 

Cheers,
Avetik 

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I wold love a good tutorial about Q vs R. It is suppossed to be about the same difficulty as B&N v K, but I can do that but not QvR. Thanks - Murrel

If ChessMood could have a MoveTrainer like Chessable it would be perfect, because is much easier and didactical to memorize the Opening variations playing the moves rather than going over the pgn as most of us do. Maybe ChessMood could sell it's courses on Chessable and BTW reach a wider audience

I would be interested in tips on calculation and decision-making in general. Regarding calculation, I know that you should look for candidate moves and follow the check-capture-threat priority. I think there's more to it though :) About decision-making, I'd be curious to know how you make a decision when the continuation is unclear or there are several options. Is it just a matter of feeling and intuition? For example, it happens to me that among the candidate moves I see, I analyze one in particular because it's the most attractive to me. Then I don't find a convincing continuation, and I play a move that is not as attractive to me, but it doesn't have any obvious drawback. Often the most attractive to me was indeed the best move. I read that Tal would not necessarily calculate the whole continuation after one of his crazy sacrifices but his intuition would tell him that he should have a strong position and attacking opportunities. However, he still should see "deep enough" to assess that. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to improve this aspect of the game! Thank you! Francesco

Time management. I recently played in a 5 round OTB tournament - time control 120 d5. All five games were decided in a time scramble with both players down to a few minutes or less. Unfortunately, I was usually the one who blundered in time pressure or ran out of time altogether. This is my pain point.

Hi Avetik It's great to see the articles making a comeback. I would be interested in advice as how to make learning more active in chessmood courses (for example the classic games videos). I think with video learning it's too easy to be passively learning and not reap the benefits of the great content. I pause the videos and guess moves but I'm not sure I'm maximising the potential of the videos.

Thanks Avetik, I'm looking forward to seeing some new articles. I found some of the old ones quite helpful. Weekly articles sounds like quite a lot of work for you! I think every few weeks would be fine. Some big topics like calculation seem better suited to a course. I guess such a course needs a lot of examples for training on, as well as advice on calculation techniques etc. For players 2000/2100 FIDE or higher I suspect this topic is probably one of the most important. For articles, one topic I am interested in is different player types and how that should impact training, if at all. It's clear that some players are more intuitive, while others are more calculation focused. And some players love to sacrifice and attack, while others are more comfortable with a positional grind and/or heading for the endgame at every opportunity. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and how it flows into us amateurs trying to maximise our results.

Excited to learn more from the articles. Would like articles on Visualization and Calculation training. At what level to start training. How to Train. What abilities are expected at different levels just like the different levels of opening knowledge at each level (Whitemood openings, Chessmood openings, Advanced Chessmood openings). I am currently between 1200-1350 rating based on US Chess Federation system. I am able to solve 90% of the Tactical Ninja problems (1/2 way through course). However, I am unable to visualize/calculate all the different options the opponent had to defend (not using board to solve) position but I tend to be able to find the main idea/line. Thanks Bret

I would like to learn about what are the bad pieces and how to improve these pieces so they become active? How to think about a chess position? Improving calculation skills an visualisation from the beginning let say untill 2000 level. Coordination with pieces how to do that? Maybe sending games to you to analyse so you can discover our weaknesses. Some puzzle homework whatwecan do at home GR Dirk

Hi coach Mr.Avetik, I would like to know how to beat consistently ~1900-2000 elo players (I'm 2150). Against other levels I play ok, but against this group my results are tragic for psychological reasons, overpushes, many draws, I dont create imbalanced positions etc.

Hello GM Avetik, Since there are so many GMs in the Chessmood team, it might be interesting for the members to see an article about the journey from beginner to GM from different perspectives - what the training looked like, what were the hurdles you had to overcome at various stages (beginner to 2000, 2000 to master, master to FM, IM to GM etc.), what were the critical changes you made to progress to the next change. Maybe psychological aspects, training, help from coaches, anything else.

daily puzzle

Is there any way that I can check the previous daily puzzles I did? or If I missed the couple weeks, How can I find them? Thanks

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You can access previous daily puzzles by manually editing the URL. For example here is the URL for the puzzle from 7 April: https://chessmood.com/daily-puzzle/07.04.2022 Btw, today's puzzle was a fun one.

A possible method is to manually create a Chessbase file (or lichess study) and input and save the positions. I did that a little bit

Question from Caro-Kann game

In this position, Is Ne5 or Nbd2 preferable? I did post this in Facebook chat but would like a definite feedback.

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Hi Inguh,

Both moves are good and logical. Ne5 is good as it's active, Nd2 continues the developement.

Good luck!

Schlechter Variation of the French Defense: Line After 9. a3 O-O

I've been studying the course on the Schlechter variation. I'm on 3...c5, specifically on this video: https://chessmood.com/course/french-defence/episode/129 Around 1:50 into the video it covers the line 9. a3 O-O 10. b4, and he says the following moves should be Bb2, Qe2, and Rad1. I've been playing around with this line in Stockfish and Qe2 never seems to be a good move. The best I can get is: 10...Be7 11. Bb2 Nd5 12. Qe1 a6 13. Rd1 This has an evaluation of about +1.1 But if I enter Qe2 instead of Qe1, the evaluation drops to about -0.3. I suspect it's because the black knight can then come to f4 and fork the queen and the bishop. The queen's forced to move anyway and the bishop is lost. I'm visually impaired and the video moves rather fast, so I could have missed something, which is why I wanted to post it here. Input would be appreciated.

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Sorry, can't figure out how to edit my post, but here are the exact moves leading up to that line: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Bd3 c5 4. exd5 Qxd5 5. Nc3 Qd8 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. dxc5 Bxc5 8. O-O Nf6 9. a3 O-O 10. b4

Qe2 and centralizing the rooks is a very good and general plan, that of course must be adjusted depending on what Black plays. In this structure after 11.Bb2 the knight on c6 is misplaced. In these structures, the knight should be on d7 to do a good job. 

Again we cannot and will never analyze all the engine moves, but in this position both bishops are located in very good squares pointing to the king side, Black-s bishop is not developped and once you locate the rooks in the center it will be difficult to place it in a nice square. 
After Nd5, as you said, Qe2 would be a mistake because it will allow Black to exchange the Light Square Bishop with Nf4 and we would lose our best piece at the moment without any compensation.

?In this case I would play just Qd2 renforcing the c3 knight and preparing ?the rook centralization, and see how the opponent moves… 
 

Hi Brandon,

I do support the idea of ChessMood Odysseus, however, my attention went to another point. 
The position you were playing around with an engine seems to be pretty deep and I don't believe it will happen super often.
The engine can be our friends, but sometimes it's not the best time investment to stick around some rare positions, looking for engine numbers.

I think that investing time to learn this game better through many practical courses which we offer will be better :-) 

 Good luck!

Practical Skills

Hello everyone I feel that somehow when I actually play I don't really play at the level I would like to. I feel like I am lacking the practical skills I need. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of some chess principles but I do not know whether I am applying the or not. Any suggestions or tips would be welcome. Thank you in advance

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Sounds like there is a vast possibility there which would be hard to give a useful answer to. Unless you can pinpoint to a specific area the only suggestion would be to get a master to look at some of your games and find areas for improvement. If you analyse and check / or use an engine are there patterns? E.g. getting a strong position the sabotaging it by giving away key points to the opponent. And then start to ask why you did that.

I agree with David - the description of the challenges you are facing is quite vague. If you are able to clarify or give more details then you might get more helpful responses. Other than that, the only tip I can offer is to try playing some slower games. It is quite difficult to apply newly acquired knowledge if you are playing blitz games and nothing else (assuming that is the case).

Evans Gambit

I've just started working with a coach recently and one of the openings he showed me was the Evans Gambit. I've found limited resources on it to see whether it is really a good opening or not. I'm still evaluating whether this coach works for me or not so I'm trying to look more deeply into the things he teaches me. Any opinions on the Evans Gambit? It goes 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 I'm new to this site so not sure if I'm posting this in the right place.

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I'd say the Evans is a fine opening for developing players to learn about the initiative and get more comfortable with sacrificing a pawn. It should score quite well unless the opponent is well prepared. For example I advised a friend to give the Evans Gambit a try and he did so. During the following 2 years his chess.com blitz rating went from 1550 to over 1800, while his rapid rating went from 1800 to 2000, and he kept playing the Evans throughout that period. For stronger players it's best as a blitz opening or perhaps an occasional surprise weapon at longer time controls. You can still get a ton of value out of ChessMood without playing all the openings. For example I'm selectively adding some CM lines to my repertoire but will probably never play the full CM repertoire. The middlegame and endgame courses are also tremendous and quite extensive. If you like both your coach and ChessMood then you should have a discussion with your coach about which parts of ChessMood to work on and which ChessMood openings to use.

Unless someone is playing at a super GM level any reasonably reputable opening is fine. Whats most important is that you play openings that you feel comfortable with.

Idea behind 10. g3 move in the 8.h4 (4...Nf6,6... Qe7) Scotch ?

HI Chessmood Family! Im trying to understand the purpose of the g3 move for white that pops up in variations of the recommended h4 line in response to black playing Qe7 in the Nf6 variation. I understand that benefit created by playing h4 (Potential to crash kingside, rook lift to attack Ba6, Bg5 move, prevention of ...f5 in some lines), however I do not feel I quite understand the reasoning behind playing g3 here. On the surface it seems the possible benefit of this move could be white strengthening the f4 square and making g2 available for the light square bishop (At the cost of losing the possibility of playing Rh3). However it seems like many of the standard plans that occur later in the h4 line still work regardless of if g3 is played. What am I missing here? Thank you :) Any thoughts?

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I'm not a GM o IM but I can say what I feel in this position (I played it but not occur very often). I think you could move Bh3/Bg2 and free the movement of the queen like Qe4 move that it's thematic/ and castle (you need to take care of the bishop on a6 first) it's possible. I think this position it's very theoretical and it's not simple this h4 line. GM Gabuzyan say in stream (the last one) that this opening line need some time to feel and play! The line is very strong and resourfulness.

Didn't Sensei provide a compare and contrast in the video discussing that position?

Hi Joseph,

The purpose of g3 is to develop the bishop and castle. White often take the bishop to h3. They are trying normally to continue the game with good development.

Good luck!

Avetik's chessbase board theme.

OK this is not about chess and unnecessary but I can't find Avetik's blue board theme.Where canI find it?

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I think it is custom made... To have a board different than the rest... It is nice, eh? At the beginning I did not like it, I even told him when talking the first day, but now I like it a lot! Long live the blue board!

No name :) Why you hide your name? :) 
It's custom build :) 
Credits goes to our magic designer :) 

I know this is an older post, but I also wanted to find this board theme. Since we couldn't have it directly, I just made my own. I attached an image of what I came up with. If you want the same textures I used, you can download them for free here: https://mattplayschess.com/chessbase-theme/

Blackmood opening

Hi! wondering if theyll be a blackmood opening for d4 (dutch defense) coming out? thank you Edgar

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There is still no exact date, but Avetik is recording like crazy these days. 

Hopefully it will be out soon, very soon.? 

I got an email today that said it would be coming out next Tuesday - April 26, 2022

Anti Sicilian

In the Anti Sicilian line 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 g6 3. f4 d6 4. Bc4 Bg7 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. O-O Nf6 7. d3 What if Black play Bg4 now without 0-0, the idea is Black delayed castle. Therefore, White can not move Qh4 on time, Black can always threat to capture Bxf3 and Nd4 without worrying about white Rh3. How can we deal with the knight on d4? Thanks

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In that move order, you should play 3. d4 (part 5) after 2... g6. At the end of the line h3 seems to be fine, if White captures then Qxf3 Nd4 Qf2 with a small advantage and if the bishop retreats then e5 trying to punish Black for not castling. Getting Qh4 in successfully is often the exception not the rule.

Yes, exactly, in this move order, yes, as David pointed out, you should check the part 5 of the antisicilian course: 

https://chessmood.com/course/6-anti-sicilian-with-nc3-part-5

But if you reach this position via another way, then you have to play h3 and recapture on f3 with the Queen. There is no direct attack and you have to play more positionally like relocating the c3 knight, etc. but White is in good shape.?

How to stop blunders?

Hey, champions! 
I'm about to start recording a new course about “How to stop blunders.” 

Any ideas on how to name it? 
What about “Sharp eye”? 

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The best I've come up with so far is 'What the check?!: Avoiding blunders' Yours is nicer and keeps the two word 'skill' theme, although there is the phrase Eagle Eye meaning the same thing. I suppose there is the one word Sharpshooter too, but perhaps avoiding the link with war is preferable right now. I suppose there are more generic and enigmatic two word ones such as 'Look out!', 'Oh no!', 'Not again!' and the one word 'Embarrassed!' and I suppose an honourable mention for Britney 'Oops I did it again!'

Blunderman - stay sharp! Antiblunder hero Blunderworld adventures :)

How about "blunder buster"

Blunder Proof Your Game

How about - The Anatomy of Blunders or Do you Wonder why we Blunder? Most blunders at amateur level are caused by four things: 1 - Counting Errors 2 - Drifting aimlessly without a plan 3 - Only considering the positive side of their moves and ideas without trying to find the best ideas of the opponent. 4 - Hope chess - Deliberately playing bad or dubious moves because they contain a trap we "Hope" our opponent does not see. Sounds familiar? ;)

Blunder Avoidance Blunders Away Blunders be gone Avoid the blunder thunderstorms

Wonder why you blunder?

Throwing Blunders into the Trash Can!

Blunderbane! The cure for needless mistakes!

Blunderstand your mistakes.

Caro-kann 5...Qc7 with 6...e5

Hello Chessmood! Had in one of my OTB games this variation 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Qc7 6.Ne2 and now e5!? (the usual move is Bg4) Havent seen this in course so assumed this was not ok for black, but here's the game I played and actually got worse position out of the opening. https://www.chess.com/a/2mzKBn48EZT2S Searched chessbase also but didnt come to conclusion what the best way/plan to play is. 2 good moves are 8.Bb5 or 8.0-0 but what next? Play vs IQP? White is kinda behind in development and need to stabilize first. Please make your suggestions, thank you.

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I'm not sure if you saw my response in the other thread but I think 10.Bf4 is a small but definite improvement over 10.O-O that was played in the game. Black's position is a little less dynamic once the knight is no longer on e5.