Dutch

The Stonewall Dutch is really growing on me. The more I play it, the better I seem to be getting at it. Here is a game in a tournament that I played in last weekend. After the game, I had an Expert come up to me and compliment me on how well I played this game.

Well done! Interesting thing with this line is that although with best play it favors White, the person who understands the positional factors has the edge.

I just won a short game on ICCF with the same line but instead of 10.Ne1 my opponent played the main line 10.Ne5 but quickly lost his way positionally. I think 10.Ne1 gives away too much which you capitalized on nicely.

Truly Dutch requires little memorization (except sidelines, but the workload for them is not really heavy)

Be prepared if you play Dutch as you will face myriads of side lines that might not be refutable and the side lines have greatly distinct nature! If you are all-rounded (say, can play WITH rigid pawn structure/ double pawns/VERY bad bishop/ opposite side attack/ tactical / positional game). From my chess buddy's experience he got equal chances of facing side lines or main line during Class A/ Open tournaments. Be prepared to get well-versed in all different white options. (His mainline is Dutch Leningard, which is not ICS line but he did face most of the sideline mentioned by ICS/youtube/...)

Finally, king side attack is main objective or GOAL for black and you should consider if you really like this. I did this poorly so this explained why I switched to semi-slav and (hopefully...) Tarrasch.