Steiner variation of the French defense.

Hello everyone, 

I was just looking for some theory on how black should handle the Stiener variation. 

1.e4,e6 2.c4,...

Any instructive games, positions, or comments from experience would be appreciated. Thanks 

I use the Steiner as a move order nuance to get to the exchange French.

From the Black side, I regard the exchange as a cowardly choice. With the White pieces, I become a hypocrite and play it.

I don't think the monte carlo exchange is that bad. It's better than other lines in the exchange, at least.

If you trade off both pawns you get something very similar to the accelerated panov, though quite a bit easier to deal with for black.

If Qxd5 you get a great position alot like a Scandi.

But if Nf6, which is played about half the time, white doesn't have very much unfortunately... it's black who has a slight edge.

With this continuation black rarely finds the best move, which is Nc6. So you might get back a slight edge as white in practice most of the time, but it's still just a basically equal position without much happening, black has no real problems -

If you feel like rolling the dice and going for a Scandi position 50% of the time, and tolerating the bland equal position otherwise, maybe it's fine. But I'd probably just go into the monte carlo, it's more complex / interesting.

Also worth noting is the transposition into the kramnik variation of the french sicilian -