The opening was advocated by the German player Siegbert Tarrasch, who contended that the increased mobility Black enjoys is well worth the inherent weakness of the isolated center pawn.

Even if Black fails to make use of their mobility and winds up in an inferior endgame, tied to the defense of their isolated pawn, they may be able to hold the draw if they defend accurately.

The most common setup is to fianchetto the king's bishop in order to put pressure on the isolated d5-pawn, as 3...c5 has relinquished the possibility of protecting the point d5 by means of ...c6.

While this was once essayed by Alexander Alekhine, it has never achieved popularity at master level and is considered advantageous for White.

During the 2010's, the hitherto forgotten line 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 c5 5.cxd5 exd5 6.g3 Nc6 7.Bg2 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Bc5 became a topic of theoretical debate at the top level mainly due to the efforts of Russian grandmaster Daniil Dubov.