The Opening Meta Part 1

Hello everyone. I will cover the latest developments and trends in the chess opening meta in this new series. These days, opening theory evolves faster and faster, and things go out of fashion very fast as refutations are discovered. I will try to pick hot lines and explain their ideas and reasoning behind them.

This week, I wanted to share this new idea against the Caro-Kann that has seen play recently. As a very solid opening, it's difficult to gain concrete advantages against it. Almost everything under the sun has been tried, from the Panov to the Tal, but they have all been rebuffed. More generally speaking, all the forcing lines have all been refuted by computers these days, and now opening doctrines revolve more and more around leaving computer lines to just get a quiet, secure edge with white. You see this in the d3 Ruys, the Catalans, the Retis, and Englishes. The thing that all of these openings have in common is that there's no forcing variations or tactics; they're all very slow, positional, and lacking in theory.

This line begins with a very innocuous-looking start:

Now the most common way for black to proceed is

An endgame is reached quickly. White typically hopes to play c3 and Kc2 next. As I mentioned before, it may not look like much, but white has a few things going for him.

• The white king will be better placed and more secure on c2 than his black counterpart on e8 or e7
• White is a tempo ahead in development and therefore will be able to take more space on one of the flanks
• Black has to develop his bishop to g4 before Nd7 to prevent white from sticking the pawn on e5

I think the biggest draw to this opening, however, is that black has no advantages of his own. With the structure being symmetrical, black really doesn't have a whole lot he can try, since whatever plan he tries, white will be a step ahead to do the same thing. This kind of scenario is basically what white players are looking for nowadays. 

To avoid this, black has a few alternatives he can try:

Overall, I can't say I would play this for white. The advance, exchange, and fantasy all look more critical. But if you like endgames, and don't want the hassle of keeping up with the latest theory, d3 might be for you.

What are some opening you guys feel have become popular lately? Comment any you want to be reviewed.