TL Chess Match - Page 18

The move is too flexible. Seems nearly obvious really. That way, to nearly any move we can reply with Nbd7, which gives us a myriad of goodies. A lot of good, natural moves for us. We're doing well.

ill just quote what i said last time someone offered this move, it's bad.

d5 would not be as good a continuation because it then allows his knight to take the beautiful e5 square, a much better follow up is d6, this would makes blacks position slightly better
c5 is also worse because even after dxc5 making his pawns tripled it gives his queen control of the open file, and now we practically must recapture anyway with the pawn creating an isolated pawn and a big weakness, like them being able to easily take the open b file etc.

Not much to choose from here. Only other candidate move is Be4 which has never really been popular although can be played for its element of surprise.

It's a positionally strong move. It doesn't threaten anything directly, but there's no need to go on a frenzy just yet!

Doesn't the knight control more space faster? We can move the pawn up next turn or something.
I can see that we would be blocking out bishop holding the knight in that spot if we moved to c6 but what about a6?

yes it does, but the pawn controls more IMPORTANT squares faster, if that makes sense. The knight can go to a6 or to d7, depending on what we want to do, and depending on what Vekzel plays. By delaying its move, we can make the best possible move at the best possible time.