Can you consider
3) Bb3 instead of 3) exd5 for white.
After 3) Bb3 - dxe4
4) Nc3 - Nf6
5) f3 - exf3
6) Nxf3
and then something like e6 should be played and I think white is ahead in development and that can compensate for the pawn.
I may have missed something.
Try working it out and tell me
no big compensation since whites lead in developement doesnt really have any big threats to black. Black just needs to develop normally and white will be down a pawn for nothing.
White's lead in development will surely cause a hindrance to black's development.
There will be quite good atacking chances for white.
It is worth a pawn is what I think.
Try calculating a bit further .
Let's see what we arrive at.
I'll try posting my lines with the board shortly.
I wouldn't play that bishop's opening unless I was playing against the Sicilian. If I am not mistaken that's book for it anyway.
@Estragon Your right . There isn't much progress for white.
I just suggested as an alternative which is kinda okay.
Well speaking correctly , Bc4 is move wasted and a tempo.
It is best avoided
I think nameno is on the right track of why I'm seeing this. I think players at my level are used to seeing the sicilian played and that has become their natural move order so they don't stop to rethink it after c6 instead of c5.
My last game was a player 100 points above me who played the Bc4 and it was a fairly easy win. I actually used to play the sicilian and have only been trying out the Caro-Kann very recently. When I look back I did see Bc4 fairly often so it is probably people used to playing against the sicilian and don't realize c6 is a very different approach.
I've had several games recently where white has started the same way and it seems strange to me everytime. So I was wondering if there is something I'm missing because I can't see this as a good approach by white.
So why do people keep playing this? Also my typical response if white doesn't put black in check has been to develop the white bishop (as you usually would in the caro kann) so that I can play e6 to protect the center pawn. Not sure if that is the best plan but it has worked well.