Playing ...Nc6 in the Queen's Gambit

Is it possible to play Nc6 and get into queen's gambit positions? I saw a game in Chigorin's defence in which Black seemed to play this way and get a normal position.

With white able to develop Bg5, it's probably not good. There are Rubinstein Nimzo with early e3, where playing nc6 is playable.

You can most certainly play Nc6 in the Queens Gambit Accepted.  that can lead to interesting games... Showalter variation i think it's called, check it out.

After 5.Bg5 Nf6 White can play 6.Qa4 and transpose to another line called Ragozin. But since the knight is already on c6 I looked at other moves.

6.Qc2 seems to transpose to a Nimzo and there were a lot of draws. After 6...h6 7.Bxf6 Qxf6 8.e3 O-O 9.a3 Bxc3 10.Qxc3 Re8 either Black played ...Re8, ...dxc4 and ...e5 and all the pieces were traded off to a bishop endgame or White captured on d5 before this happened and there were a lot of drawn queen's gambit exchange endgames. I'm guessing 6.Qb3 does the same thing. 

And after 6.e3 h6 7.Bxf6 Qxf6 it looks like most of those positions are Nimzo-Indian too. The odd thing is that none of the positions I saw were actually ones from Chigorin's defence.

6pxp pxp 7e3 h6 8Bh4 is a Ragozin where black has voluntered nc6, without white misplacing queen. These and similar, without pxp, are definitely inferior to known Ragozin positions.

The rubinstein nimzo with nc6 is harder to play for black than usual ones too.

Yeah I'm sure this isn't the best way for Black to play these positions. The possibility of possible transpositions looked interesting. I'm also curious about 4.a3. It looks slow but I don't think Black can do much about it.

1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nf3 e6 is bad for Black.  The point of 2...Nc6 is to put pressure on d4.  To do this, you need to play 3...Bg4 (3...e5 is another idea similar to the Albin Countergambit, but it's unsound) before playing e6.  Playing 3...e6, in essence, is mixing lines.  If you play e6 without getting the Bishop out first, and also play Nc6, you will end up with a horrible game.  White has a space advantage as it is in the Orthodox QGD, but to block the possibility of c6 or c5 for Black makes matters even worse.

You'll already be cramped as Black in the QG. Why make it worse by blocking your c-pawn from either aiding the d-pawn with c6 or hitting White's d-pawn with c5?

Morozevich used to play it a lot and Ivanchuk beat Carlsen with it lol. Carlsen drew Kramnik with it. It must have some value as long as you understand it

Oh, one of those arguments.

Every weird line gets this treatment in the forums. Most chess players are duffs who barely know what's going on in a position. Playing antipositional stuff like Nc6 in the QG is only asking for trouble.

yeah, but by your reasoning MOST chess players shouldnt play Ruy or Sicilian since they are duffs who barely know whats going on.

If top 10 guys are playing it, you cant really say it sux

If you can't find your way through strange woods, you may as well stick to well worn paths than crawling over thick brush.

Ok I think we've established that ...Nc6 isn't fundamentally sound. However I'm not seeing these positions where Black is losing horribly when playing this way as supposed to playing Chigorin mainlines or some other opening. Apart from 6.cxd5 and Bh4 ideas that I didn't look at, a lot of those games seemed to be decided tactically. Here are two games.

I've gotten this position twice now so I thought I'd post.

In this case, the Chigorin is one of the more respectable of the "busted" lines. Karpov was unable to prove an advantage, even in analysis. Vasily Smyslov played it a bit because he liked the minor piece endgames that arose. Morozevich found some amazing tactical ideas. He knew it wasn't objectively best, but he also knew it was good enough to play repeatedly against the likes of Karpov! 

The Chigorin is actually quite an interesting choice for intermediate players because it involves concrete play with easy development for the minor pieces at no material cost in most lines. (There are also gambit lines for Black to choose from too.)

So yes, "one of those arguments". This is a playable offbeat line that is vastly underestimated. 

That is the ragozin not the chigorin, they are similar, but you don't usually play bb4, the ragozin is a completely sound oppening. They don't usually start with nc6 etither, but it transposed

No need to be so dogmatic. It's only move 2!

Yup. That's one of the critical differences between theory of the 1950s and theory today. Today, we know that there are many, many good variations that were considered positionally refutable in Chernev's era. 

If elite GMs repeatedy use the same opening, as Morozevich does with the Chigorin, you can bet it's not refuted. Correspondence masters play even a wider variety of sound openings, knowing the margin for error is quite large in chess.