My first victory against an International Master in an official tournament at a classical time control was precisely with this Tartakower line.
I had never played the Caro-Kann at a slow pace before, but it seemed like a good idea.
The Karpov line with Nd7 seems too passive to me, and the classic Bf5 has honestly never convinced me
1) because it is the most popular
and 2) because I don’t like developing the bishop too early in the opening.
In fact, in the Advance Variation of the Caro-Kann, I prefer the c5 variation, the Botvinnik-Carls. Bf5 is always very complex and requires study, as the bishop becomes a target for the white pieces.
I’ll also tell you that if you play the Tartakower Variation, you have to be careful
with the Alien Gambit.
I love when white trades knights and doubles my pawns in the caro kann. Black gets good attacking chances and has a very safe king due to the doubled pawn. An endgame must be avoided with this pawn structure so all black needs to do is avoid one while building an attack. There is a great checkmate trap that involves a rook for dark squared bishop sacrifice, but if the opponent sees it , the doubled pawn should be used for an attack when one presents itself. G7 can be weak and will usually get attacked by whites queen and it needs to be protected at all costs. Things can get cramped for blacks dark squared bishop as well.
The advantage of this setup is you can maintain 3 pawns in front of the king while still having a kingside pawn attack. 1 mistake from my opponent and it was mate in 5!