The Semi-Riga !?

Recently I was looking at the Riga variation, which I found quite interesting, here it is for those that do not know it:

And, having some experience with the Berlin I thought, "hey why can't I play this type of thing instead of ..Nd6. I thought this was a good idea because there is no pawn on a6 yet, which means in some lines bxc6 followed by Ba6 may be very powerful:

From here my computer has been less than helpful, it wants to play Nxc6 and enter into a forced draw variation for black. Additionally, I feel like the pawn is better on a7 in the parrallel riga endgame variation.

In chess coms database 2 games have reachd exd4 Re1, neither of which played Bd6, but I doubt it's a new idea. So i'm left wondering why this isn't playable?

yeah, Qxd4 didn't seem so tricky at first, but after feeding some moves into the engine it does like white,

I think 7..Be6 may be an improvement though.

Yeah, I think white has an advantage with 8.c4. However, I do not think black is lost, and its definatley an interesting opening, maybe some value as a surprise weapon. Objectively it isn't as bad as the latvian and some other common lines, and quite trappy as well.

Also, I think 9..Qf6 is a blunder for black, he has better moves, like ..Bxf2:

The 8..f5 line leads to some super messy positions, I wouldn't want black OTB just yet, but it might be playable, although difficult.

@Fiveofswords, I'm not too familiar with petrov theory, does black play exd4 in any lines to reach similar positions?

Sharp eye, I had actually looked at Bh6, but initially my com didnt think it was as dangerous as some othe moves, but after playing aroun with it a bit it agrees.

So I guess ..f5 is left, which isn't really comfortable, even if it's playable, it seems like white still has a million dangerous tries.

I will likely use it occasionally as a surprise weapon I think, since whites best moves are a bit counter intuitive, it could be useful in some blitz or must win situation.