Personally, as a Caro enthusiast, I like the fact that if I play 4...dxc4, White is stuck with an isolated pawn at d4. After 5 Bxc4 Qc7, chess.com's Opening Explorer (Master Games) shows Black wins slightly more games than White and none of the several usual White 6th moves gives much of an advantage and usually result in a slight disadvantage.
After ,,,Qc7, White then has to protect his hanging c4-Bishop and Black, in the next more or two, usually plays Bg4 of Bf5 - so you're not prevented from doing that before ...e6 in most cases.
The position invites Black to post a Knight on d5, usually through ...Nf6 and ...Nd5, Of course, with your d and c pawns gone, Black should castle Kingside and most likely attack on the Queenside while trying to take advantage of White having to defend the d4-Pawn with pieces.
Started reading Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis to better understand the caro-slav structure.
I'm hoping a stronger player will be able to help me understand the following position, which doesn't seem to be classified as either.
Soltis gives the following two positions:
Caro
Slav:
My position in question:
This last position arises out of a lesser played line - 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 *
and while I can look at the Explorer and see some decent continuations for black, my main question is - is there any way to relate this structure back to the caro-slav family? I like to play the caro with Bf5, but this seems to prevent that idea.
If someone can point me in the right direction for how to consider this structure, I'd appreciate it!
Thank you in advance,