(High-rated) Slav players: How do you handle the Exchange slav?

...Or do you even play the Slav against inferior opponents?

I had the black pieces against a 1700 this weekend who played 1. d4 and 2. c4, and I spontaneously decided to play 2...e6 instead of the slav, since I was certain he'd go for the exchange-slav. But this would have given him the oppertunity to play the Catalan or something I'm not familiar with. Luckily I was able to transpose the game back to a semi-slav, but it got me thinking...

How serious of a drawing weapon is the Exchange Slav? Obviously it's not something I'd worry about against someone with a rating much, much below mine, but I feel like players in the 1800-2000 range could make it very hard for you to win on the black side of the Exchange Slav...

Here's an anti-exchange slav line I've looked at, but I decided over the board that I didn't feel comfortable enough in it.

Hehe, it's funny because this used to be a reason that I would not play the slav, or why I considered giving up the french. I don't know, I think in general it's probably more of an irrational fear. Sure there's always the possibility that someone will play the exchange, but rarely does it actually happen. There's so much incentive not to play it from white's point of view, since in general it doesn't challenge black, so from black's point of view there's not much reason to expect it.

I still tend to think chess is chess. You can start out with a symmetrical looking position but still make better decisions than your opponent from that position. Even in an endgame, there will be decisions about where to place your pawns, what targets/outposts to create, etc, all areas where you might outplay your opponent.

Let's put it this way: has the slav exchange actually been a problem for you? It hasn't been a problem for me; I've played the slav for about a year now and no one has ever even played it. If someone did I would just play principled chess and wait for my moment to outplay him. I don't think I need to change up my whole way of playing just because someone might offer me a position where black has no problems equalizing. That can often backfire anyway -- if you are unfamiliar in a position, that can allow a lower rated player to give you problems that he would normally be unable to. I've been playing the french for over 5 years and my opponents have not done particularly well against me when playing the exchange.

To summarize, it's probably not worth putting too much fear into this. It rarely happens, and symmetrical doesn't have to equal draw. Even Carlsen wins symmetrical looking positions from, say, the QGA. Perhaps if you know your opponent plays the slav exchange you could prepare in advance, and I'm not saying having a "backup" system is a terrible idea, but I would consider it quite optional really. Besides, playing for two results right from the start, as black, is a pretty nice deal, even against a lower rated player.

Haha, it has been sort of a problem for me a couple times - a 1900 played it against me once, and I had my chances, but it ended up bring very drawish until I took some irrational chances and even lost...another time a 2050 played it against me and he seemed to have no trouble making a draw. But true, I see what you mean.

However, there are lines in the database here on chess.com that have a draw percentage of over 95% when over 1000 games have been played in those lines - and not all of those games are even between professionals!

David Vigorito in his 2007 book on the Exchange Slav does a great job of showing Black the weapons he has in the 6...Bf5 variation.

Symmetrical Defenses are not drawish for Black if he breaks the symmetry at the right time.  I had the following in Round 5 of the US Open this past year, playing Black, and won.  The complete game can be found in the 9/1/2014 download from twic.com.

So keep the symmetry with 6...Bf5 for now.  Break it later.

Yeah post #4 is an example of the kind of stuff I'm talking about. You can break the symmetry naturally, not just for the hell of it. After 13...Bh5 black is able to argue that his bishop is better placed than the white bishop on g5. Basically, throughout a chess game, there will be plenty of decisions you have to make, and a weaker player, or a person unwilling to fight, will eventually play a natural looking move but with the wrong plan, and you can gradually exploit that by playing more purposeful moves.

Very few of the exchange Slav games I've played as white end up as draws. It's probably more a drawing resource for titled players I'd think.

Following Lakdawala's Slav Move by Move set up with a6 and e6, never play Bf5 and play Qb6 at some point to sharpen things up by taking the b2 pawn. The author claims White gets nothing if he does not sac his pawn.

Yes, but it seems white players are often more than happy to "get nothing," as long as they can hold a draw

Imbalances are still the way to go.