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Bishop's opening =Roy Lopez Reversed?

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Rubidium

Thanks to Chess.com's live chess, I have been practicing my main opening for white, the bishops opening and vienna game. Often, I encountered 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Nc3 Bb4!?. I went on Wikipedia and wikipedia gives the roy lopez line: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6. 

Perhaps in my games I should play 4. Nf3!? leading to Kings gambit declined by transposition, or a Gambit if black plays ...Nxe4?!

Feel free to post comments on what you think is the right move in the position. Usually I play 4. Nge2 or d3.

Rubidium
melvinbluestone wrote:

Simply 3.d3 is probably best. After 3.Nc3, you occasionally get these pests who play 3...Nxe4. Or you can mix it up with 3.Qe2!?, which wins in all variations.....


2...Nxe4 Challenge excepted! 3. Qh5!! and white mates in 438. Actually, I have never played against Nxe4 on this website. I doubt many begginers even know about that move. Almost everyone plays the moves I discussed formerly, namely 2...Nc6 or 2...Bb4.

Tomkov

It's better than the usual Bishops opening. (Nc3 instead of d3). White plays 4.Nge2 and black doesnt have his usual responsce, d7-d5. Also if he tries Nxe4 (Nxe4 d5) white has a free tempo with c3 attacking the bishop.

So white would like to play Nge2 - 0-0 - d3 and f4 here with a good game. Black could play c6 and d5.

Tomkov

That's why after 4 Qh5 Nd6 white plays 5 Bb3! which leads to enormous complications.

You may be right about 4 Nge2?! Nxe4! it doesnt seem to give white much...

So 4 d2d3 leads to a proper bishops opening, 4.Nf3 transposes to more common theory

gregpkennedy

What about good ol' a3?
bresando

Playable for certain, but black is unlikely to play Nxe4?, which is bad because exchanging the e pawns favours white (black will not archieve a kingside majority if he exchange the e pawns, and that is supposed to be his compensation for the missing bishop pair in those structures). As black i would play something like 5...O-O 6.Nf3 Re8 and then playing for d5, probably with c6 in some lines.

bresando

Yes, 4.Qh5 is complicated only if black wants it complicated. 

gregpkennedy

Right, I know that Nxe4 is dumb, was just playing it out for demonstration.  The way I see this entire situation: Black is stubbornly trying to play out Ruy Lopez, but doesn't grasp the tempo advantage is needed to complete the line.  At some point, your white B is going to be in just the right place to thwart his plans.  Here's what happens if you just play along:

bresando

False. it's clear that his opening falls apart if you make him blunder a pawn, but what about c6 before d5? it turns out that the Bc4 is not so well placed at all. And if it moves again, white is a tempo down and not a tempo up on normal exchange lines.