Langrock updated The French Rubinstein in an expanded 2nd edition

Kasparov used 7.c3 to win a model game so defenders must be ready. Theory runs very deep in this line. I was looking for a solid back to my Caro-Kann defence(seems everyone knows what I play now) so this favorite of GM Meier and many others came to mind. Black must be willing to defend a bishop ending down to a draw in order to hold the Rubinstein.

This is game 7. Langrock went quite deeply into the details in his annotations but I still had some unanswered questions. At first i thought looking at this game would take an hour or so but this stretched into a couple more hours and then over the weekend. Still I am not done but hopefully perfect preparation is not required. Here are my tentative findings so far:

Socko-Meier

French Rubinstein 7.c3 Kasparaov Variation

Lublin 2010

The key move is 17..Qc6(Diagram)

The idea is to stop Qe4

After 17..Qc6

which can lead to the following bishop ending

After 26..bc(Diagram)

The queenside majority is not as dangerous as it looks although Black has managed to lose in practical play.

After 26..bxc