Yes, i would certainly benefit from some guidance on this, from blacks perspective as I always have trouble with this for some reason.
To me it is probably the most annoying and troubling of the openings! I find it very hard to understand for some reason and get caught out nearly every time, It's bizarre. I hope someone out there might be willing to play a few games with me in this line and tell me why I'm so dreadful at playing against this opening as black. :).
As da as was s
It's a symmetrical position with white to move so they have a small plus. The e5 square is a good outpost for white and correspondingly e4 for black. If you play sensibly, you should not get into trouble against the exchange. Look at a French opening book and you'll see most of the coverage is on 3. e5, 3. Nd2 and 3. Nc3 whereas the exchange is not considered critical.
There is an old rule by Svenonius that the knights should be asymmetric. If white plays Nf3, you should reply Ne7 with the option of Bf5 and kicking out the knight by f6 if it lands on e5. Conversely, if white plays Ne2, you play Nf6 and aim to occupy e4. If you want more excitement, there are plans with opposite side castling eg Nc6, Bf5, Qd7, 0-0-0 or an early c5 breaking the symmetry.
4) c5 is NOT a move. Don't play that! You played most of your pieces on the correct squares... but you played c5 randomly and suffered for it.
Remain solid and boring and wait for your opponent to fall asleep or get bored and launch a bad attack. We can work on it. I'll stay in touch :)
For the exchange variation, the following setup by black is simple, straightforward, and is used by masters with success- c6, Bd6, Ne7, Bf4 (trying to trade off the "French bishop") Nd7. easy, simple, and good winning chances; black can never be worse
my advice is follow some grandmaster who likes to play the French defense and see how they respond to the Exchange variation. it's easy for black to get a solid middlegame and then work for an advantage later
Honestly I share the opinion that the Exchange French is a very annoying line that usually guarantees White a small, yet highly annoying edge. I usually try to mitigate this by playing an offbeat setup with ...Nc6, which often catches people off guard because it looks slightly dubious, as well as not that common.
This line starts with 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.ed ed 4.Nf3 Nc6!?
Usually White responds with either 5.Bd3 or 5.Bb5, though 5.c4 and 5.Nc3 are also moves. Usually, if the structure remains the same, Black tries to play for ...Bd6, ...Nge7, and then either ...Bf5/...Qd7/...0-0-0, with ...f6 often thrown in, or ...0-0. Sometimes you are able to just throw all your pawns and storm the Black king. That said, many people dislike playing it from the Black side.
Alternatively, you can remain solid with the lines you already play, or pick another offbeat line. An offbeat line that you might like is the 'pin variation', where you play ...Bg4, respond to Nc3 with ...Bb4, and overall have a pretty aggressive setup.
In conclusion, don't play the dry, slightly worse mainline if you can find an offbeat approach against the Exchange in which you like the positions you get. Good luck!
