To my mind this opening has a couple of advantages for white. One is that you have a clear plan to play for, and two is that you cut way down on blacks options reducing the amount of study that you have to do (it has been my experience that e5 is way less popular then c5 so for me to spend the amount of time necessary to play the Ruy proper is a little crazy).
After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 Play usually continues 5.0-0 and now black has for main options. F6, Qd6, Bd6 or Bg4 at the club level Bd6 and Bg4 make up the vast majority of games that I see.
After 5 ... Bd6 white should play 6. d4 exd4 7.qxd4 and now black only viable move is f6 but weak players who don't meet the exchange much will sometimes play Nf6 and after e5 that’s the game.
5 ... Bg4 gives black a bit of an attack but with good play white holds him off and ends up in a superior endgame. Here is a sample line
With best play white will get himself killed trying to hang on to the piece, however sometimes black makes errors in the attack and you can play Re1 and Ndf1 which wins the game outright as it stops the attack and keeps you a piece up.
I would add that if you are not comfortable playing endgame this is not the line for you, as a big part of whites threat is to trade pieces and go into a superior king and pawn endgame.
I tried it out as black, as white its not hard to play against, and also as black I don't prefer it anymore. I have learned that early trades lead to more drawish games in my opinion. Leaves less variations so easier to calculate and harder to muster up attacks. there are few exceptions but i don't feel that this is one of them.
I know an excellent 11 yr old scholastic player who loves the Lopez exchange, and when I asked him why, he said 1) he knows how best to punish the most common weak variations black plays 2)he's really familiar with the middlegame situations that arise 3)he's usually better than his opponent at the resulting endgame if both exchange into it early. So basically, he focuses on this opening, hoping his better prep is a winning advantage.
I'm assuming at some level his opponents realize (from past games) to avoid his fav line... 😉
All of this talk about this variation being drawish is silly. At the GM level chess itself is drawish, and GM's might draw 50% of their games. Of course they won't play a variation that tends towards draws. On the other hand amateur games tend to be decisive maybe 5% of amateur games end in a draw. so what if you play a variation that tend towards draws, lets say it double the number of draws you receive and now it is at 10%, compared with the advantages of the opening I just don't think that it matters that much.
Ruy Lopez Exchange
01 Sep '07 23:33
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