Repertoire for Black against e4

The Marshall Gambit at the GM level is basically a draw by force!  That's why nobody allows it as White, they all play Anti-Marshall lines.

First off, use chessbase, as you can see what year these games were played. Secondly, when you say "highest" level I assume you mean Grandmasters? And Benko Gambits are very rare at these levels. 

Gave you the years Boss? (If you care to read back)

This opening IS used by GM's however you wish to argue that point?

http://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=3843119

Obviously you haven't seen my repetitive posts about games here vs games over the board.

Games at Chess.com DO NOT MEAN SH*T.  First off, they are 5 minutes.  Secondly, over the board, you can't make 41 meaningless rook moves when you have K+R and I have K+R+2P and run me out of time.  OTB play involves Time Delay (United States) or Increment (Other countries).

As for beating players between 2000 and 2300 (in essence, the 2000s, 2100s, and 2200s), scr*w chess.com, here's where you should be looking:

http://main.uschess.org/datapage/gamestats.php?memid=12663277

And also, if you want to see who I played and when within a scoring range, to see whether recent results are wins, losses, etc, just click on the number.  For example, if you click on the "2100", you will see the result of every game I played against players 2100 to 2199, the most recent at the top!

Chess.com isn't real chess.  It's pushing wood on the internet.

Lastly, the Scandinavian Gambit was NOT on the list!

OK, fair enough, you've beaten some strong players.

However, not all games here are 5mins as you know. They are different to OTB, not necessarily worse. As you know if you've ever seen pieces flying and falling in bullet/blitz OTB, that isn't playable.

The statistics you are trying to use on me, best win 1904, current rating mid-1700s, are 100% 5-minute games.  That's all I play on here.  Standard time controls, like G/45, I do on ICC, not here.

I have played blitz over the board.  The "Blitz" rating in the USCF profile is new.  It used to be "Quick" was 5 to 29, now it's 10 to 29.  I haven't played Blitz OTB since, but you'll also notice using that USCF ID number in the other link that my OTB rating is in the upper 2000s, my Quick is in the Upper 1800s.  If I had to choose one or the other to be stronger in, I'd rather be stronger in Slow Chess.

Bullet is just ludicrious, here or OTB, though like you said, unplayable over the board.  Blitz is playable OTB, but I severely limit how much of it I play.

I think i will study the berlin defence, because i am pretty good at endgames, but i don't know to much about other defences in the ruy lopez. Is the open spanish/ruy lopez good?

Some of the mainlines in the benko gambit score 70% for white.  Also the only recent notable games in the benko on the top level occured in the tournament where morozevich withdrew for being sick and victor bologan a 2740 replaced him and played the Benko like twice and got crushed like both times. 

The Open Ruy is ok, but if you like endgames, play the Berlin.  Just don't fall in love with the Bishop pair.  Black's worst piece is the dark-squared Bishop.  He would love to trade it for White's c3-knight (hence why Re1 is a mistake in the Berlin).  The reason is simple.  Unlike the exchange Ruy, the White pawn is on e5, not e4.  So he needs to play f4 to protect it.  So now the only way to get in f5 is to be able to play g4 (in the exchange, e4 supports an f5 push).  There inlies the problem.  Black will do anything and everything he can to prevent g4 by White at all cost.  Moves like ...h5 are common.  But here's the other thing to look at.  White doesn't have high Light-Squared Bishop.  Black does.  So black is already one-up on White there.  Also, what's the only Black piece that can't contribute?  The Dark-Squared Bishop.  However, if he can get a Knight for that Bishop, he has eliminated another piece that can attack g4, and gave up a piece that never can reach g4.

Black's best friend is the Light-Squared Bishop.  Black's favorite endings are B vs N (B is White's, N is Black's) and OCBs.  Same color Bishop endings and N vs DSB are very depressing for Black.  N vs LSB is typically equal.

Cox's book on the Berlin explains things that ThrillerFan did and tons more. It may very well be the best opening book ever written, you should seriously consider getting the book. It's almost enough to make me take up the Berlin, I appreciate books that go well beyond other books in explanations.

Since I'm playing I b3 I've considered playing 1...b6 even though 1...b6 doesn't have a good quality reputation. The only recent book out on 1...b6 is written by GM Bauer. It's the book 1...b6 players go by. But as a reviewer of Bauer's book said at Amazon, it's almost 5 stars in analysis but only 2 stars in explanation. If the explanations were better that would help give me a push I need, but I may play it anyway. I'm still not 100% certain I'm going to play The Sniper. I figure 1...b6 may be as good as The Sniper is and make for a better pairing with 1 b3. 

Some support for the scandinavian, good.

Proppolis, the problem with recommending a good book for black's side of the ruy lopez is that there is an incredible amount of theory.

If you're okay with committing tons of time to learning a good amount of it, then by all means continue.

Otherwise, I still strongly recommend the Scandinavian/Portuguese ;)

I am okay in learning an incredible amount of theory. I don't know what is the best book in the berlin defence. Now I have two books:The Open Games for Black without RL and The Berlin Defence by Igor Lysyj and Roman Ovetchkin. It is a complete repertoire against e4, but i couldn't decide if the book on the berlin is the best.

the b5 sacrifices that are dubious are earlier in the game. White can wait it out until an ideal time to sacrifice, its very positional he gets 2 pawns for a piece and also connected queenside passers.

Gambit are just theoretical sacrifices that have been named. Any gambit book will list most of those variations in it, just because they were not named 'gambit' does not mean they are not.

The poisoned pawns are gambits, just because its ignoring the threat does not mean its not a gambit, there are many similar ones such as the trompowsky vaganian and torre spassky which gambit the b pawn in the same style and are named Vaganian GAMBIT spassky GAMBIT.

Marshall gambit against the triangle is a legitimate try.

Botvinnik, is a gambit, in the same way as the others are. Most sources should confirm this is a gambit.

Schliemann, it doesnt matter if YOU dont find it sound. If i said, "i dont find the ruy lopez sound" would it matter?

Im not really too familiar with siesta so ill take your word for it, though i dont believe it is unsound.

Vaganian gambits listed: 1.d4 nf6 2.Bg5 c5 3.d5 Qb6 4.nc3 Qxb2
in which case white does play 3.d5
or
1.d4 nf6 2.c4 c5 3.nf3 cxd4 4.nxd4 e5 is the start of the vaganian gambit. If white played 3.d5 it would be mainline, not vaganian, so its kind of stupid to make a point of it.

Sveshnikov b5 sacrifices (move 9.???) are still gambits, theyre listed in altermans gambit guide along with most others mentioned.

Just because you have good results against an opening does not make it unsound. I had a flawless 5-3-0 record against the open sicilian OTB when i played sicilian for a while against higher rated players. Does this make the open sicilian unsound?

Very unsound? I think thats an overstatement, with accurate play i think its =. Once again your results againt an opening are not indicative of its level of playability.

The Spassky and Petrosian gambits are two inside the Torre attack. The spassky gambit is another gambit where white 'ignores' the threat, and yet its a gambit!!! how about that? A simple google search, or opening search here will find them.

The fantasy variations gambit was what i was talking about, im not sure of its exact name.

Goring gambit 3..d5 is =



You have a very unscientific approach to openings.