Baltic Defense, Pseudo-Chigorin

The Pseudo-Chigorin arises after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 Bf5 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 Nc6. Black combines the Baltic Defense's early bishop development with a knight on c6 in front of the c-pawn, the hallmark of the Chigorin Defense. The knight adds pressure on d4 and covers e5, and it develops faster than the Pseudo-Slav's ...c6. The cost is that the c-pawn can no longer reinforce d5, so the queen-side weaknesses of the Baltic, b7 and the lightly defended d5-pawn, remain a concern. The engine gives White a slight edge, a smaller one than it assigns against 2...Bf5 in general.

The three main replies are developing moves. 5. Bf4, the most common, places the bishop actively and mirrors Black's own. 5. Bg5 pins nothing yet but eyes d8 and e7, and White scores best with it. The quieter 5. e3 has gone badly for White in practice, with Black winning well over half the games. Across all lines the online results are close to even, Black scoring slightly better, and draws are rare.