The Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Opening, is an ancient chess opening. These are the opening moves:

• 1. e4 e5
• 2. Nf3 Nc6
• 3. Bb5

The Ruy Lopez is one of the most common and well liked openings, with many ways to play it. It has always been popular in master chess. Something to know about it is that it does not threaten the black e5 pawn:

• 3.... a6
• 4.Bxc6 dxc6
• 5.Nxe5 Qd4 recovers the pawn.

For this reason White usually plays a longer-term strategy, starting

• 3.... a6
• 4.Ba4

I love copy/pasting!

http://wapedia.mobi/simple/Ruy_Lopez

Actually, I would argue that the exchange variation is just as good as the other variations. White won't take with Nxe5 immediately, but the idea is the if all the pieces were gone and white trades his d pawn for black's e pawn, white's kingside majority would get them a passed pawn and win the game while black's queenside majority would be crippled, so white would be won. It's not exactly that simple, but it is still a good plan.

Here are some cool sites about the Lopez in general:

http://www.exeterchessclub.org.uk/Openings/ruylopez.html

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adam.bozon/ruylopez.htm#

Some people underestimate the exchange variation but I have had many a disaster as black.

The Exchange variation is for whimps, just like most exchange variations (not the exchange Gruenfeld).