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 *