Evaluation of this alternative to French exchange lines I am a French Defense opening player from both sides. I don't like exchange line of the French Defense. They are drawish positions and my brain gets bored resulting in a positional or small mistake.

I have never played it at a 90+30 FIDE rated games, and I know the engine says this is not good at all. Anyhow I have played c5 with black several times on blitz, and I still do it. 

The level of the players I play against rounds the range 1650-1900. There are some tricks if white don't plays well. Sometimes, especially for the players with lower rating. d4 or d5 pawns get pinned and become a trouble.

Should I stop playing it?

rnbqkbnr/pp3ppp/4p3/2pP4/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq c6 0 4


I think I should have played this following line some dozens of times, having good results with black at blitz at a level 1650-1800. 

[FEN ""]
[Date "2018.07.29"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. dxe6 Bxe6 5. Bb5+ Nc6 6. Nf3 Qa5+ 7. Nc3 O-O-O *


Less frequent, but sometimes they fall, I recover the pawn, and there is misdevelopment. eg:

[FEN ""]
[Date "2018.07.29"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. dxc5 Bxc5 5. dxe6 Bxf2+ 6. Ke2 Qxd1+ 7. Kxd1 
Bxe6 *


At some of the games I played -note it is blitz- they have clear they wanted an exchange and they just do not try to profit white's advantages. Then I like to have my pawn at c5 and accept the exchange and avoid the gambit variation.

[FEN ""]
[Date "2018.07.29"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. Nf3 exd5 *
This gambit looks extremely dubious since you give a central pawn, White has played only developing moves and she has no weakness.

Besides the unassuming 4.Nf3, insisting on an exchange French, you could be worried about:


4.Nc3, transposing into the rare Marshall French (3.Nc3 c5?! 4.ed5). It is considered to favour White. The very slight plus side for you is that since White has played 3.ed5, he might not be too familiar with this line.
4.c4, when after 4...ed5 the very open position means that the extra tempo will probably be valuable.
4.de6, grabing the pawn in exchange for a single developing tempo. After 4...Be6 5.Nf3 there is no doubt that Black's compensation is unsufficient.
4.Bb5+, probably the most critical, accepting the challenge. After 4...Bd7, any of 5.Nc3, 5.a4 a6?! 6.Bc4 and 5.Qe2 make sense.


All in all, you can use this line in online blitz in you like to (but I wouldn't). However I consider it totally unsuitable for 'serious' chess with rapid or classical time controls.