Busting 3 Black Sidelines

Greetings everyone! Welcome to busting 3 dubious black sidelines (obviously there will also be a post on 3 white sidelines) which we'll in depth cover strengths, weaknesses, and concrete refutations against.

Also the lines I'm including aren't that outrageous, some of them are seen quite a lot, and can be venomous if white isn't careful. All of the following lines are classified as ugly, not outrageously unsound, but depressing for black should white parry powerfully.

Taming Wild Openings (by acclaimed opening writers Watson and Schiller) is the greatest book written on sidelines of all time. I have read this book countless times from cover to cover, successfully unleashing surprise weapons upon unprepared opponents in online blitz as well as over the board events. More importantly, it's an enlightening read which teaches you a lot about chess principles and really explains the defects of certain sidelines well, while combining it with short, concise analysis... It's very fun read and compartmentalizes sidelines into Ugly White sidelines, Ugly Black Sidelines, Good White Sidelines, Good Black Sidelines, and finally Bad White Sidelines, Bad Black Sidelines. Not to mention, there were all sorts of playable sidelines I wasn't aware of! Here's a bonus, my favorite ugly white sideline is (2.Bf4, as usual) the hyper aggressive Senechaud Gambit which goes 1.d4 e6 2.Bf4 f5 (many players like to unbalance the position against the London) but they get hit with 3.g4!? I may do a separate blog for such interesting gambit lines.

The Vinogradov variation of the Ruy Lopez.

Strength: Black restricts white's knight and his pawns control.

Weakness: Black is very passive and white can exploit this with rapid development followed up by a timely opening up of the position. 

Taming Wild Openings judgement and analysis: 

This is considered to be an opening that can be used for fun to lead to entertaining and original positions, though this book cannot recommend it for serious competition. 

"This variation has two flaws. The Queen on e7 interferes with the Bishop on f8, and the queen is deployed prematurely. Black's plan is to play Nd8 then c6, but this plan is slow and therefore risky. GM Mihail Suba is probably the strongest player to use it consistently, although experimentally-minded theoreticians such as GM Duncan Suttles and Lawrence Day have tried it, and we will cite several games from IM Edward Formanek."

The Clarendon-Court Defense.

Strength: Black can get a super Dutch, with white's pawn committed to d5, Mamedyarov and Tukmakov, among other GMs have tried this as black and it packs venom.

Weakness: Against a certain gambit, black's position will be riddled with weaknesses and white will get a powerful initiative.

Taming Wild Openings judgement and analysis: 

This opening cannot be recommended for black in serious competition.

"Preventing e4 is logical, and blac's setup is tricky to refute, but neither c5 nor f5 helps black's development, while f5 exposes the king. This opens the door to multiple solutions for white."