With a king's attack in the making, you would hardly be inclined to exchange queens. Nevertheless, having eliminated the alternatives Giri came to the conclusion this was the best way to continue the attack. He wrote: 'I was very, very happy with this move, which only occurred to me after a pretty long think.'
Here the straightforward 20.Bxe7 Nxe7 21.g4 would have left Black not a single chance, though, after the text move, Giri won the game anyway.
Protecting e2, while the rook can switch to d2 as well. This may not be your first idea due to the vis-a-vis with the e6-bishop.
Black decides to allow doubled f-pawns. 13...Be7 can be met by 14.Rd2 (after 13.e3 this would not have been possible) .
Now with his damaged pawn structure Black should have looked for dynamic counterplay with, for example, 16...a5 .
Although d5 is not a passed pawn, d6 will be an excellent post for the knight.
from here the white pawns on c4 and e4 are attacked, while the knight also supports the flank attacks ...b5 and ...f5.