Bishops opening

Im about to study the bishops opening. But before that i hope someone will tell me the main variations in the opening and the plans for both sides. 

Mostly the Bishops opening transposes to the Vienna or the Italian, there are very few independant lines.

There are quite a few independent lines (such as the respectable ususov gambit 2...Nf6 3.d4!?), but the popular way to play it is to  aim for a trasposition to "king gambit declined" lines. 

Can u show me how to tranpose to kings gambit declined lines? thanks! :)

The usual way is 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d3 Nc6 4.Nc3 Bc5 (Na5 here is solid, but white's better development makes his position the more pleasant to play IMO; Bb4 is also a good option) 5.f4 d6 6.Nf3, a position which is often obtained via a 2.f4 Bc5 move order. Many repertoire books recommend this for black, although my personal impression is that white might be rather happy with a position where he has natural kingside attacking chances without risking much. Probably a very strong player as black can hold easily, but when i see this happening between two average club players 1-0 is the commonest result.

Are u sure u gave me the right move order? cuz after ng4 i dont think white is doing well

I'm sure ;) The aggressive looking 6...Ng4 is not considered very strong AFAIK, 7.Ng5 and Qe2 both being anough for an advantage. 

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Ne6 3.d4 usually transposes to the  Italian (Two Knight's defense) with 4...Nc6.  The "King gambit declined" lines are more often reached by way of the Vienna with 3...Nc6.

Blake, of course the urusov can traspose to the 2 knights, but there are many Urusov lines which can be reached only via a 2.Bc4 move order. And also after 2...Nf6 3.d3 some early c6 lines which are similar, but not identical to some vienna stuff, and so on; but on the whole of course i don't disagree on the fact that 2.Bc4 often trasposes to other openings.

Regarding the traspositions, i don't know what is the commonest path to reach that position (i'm far from sure that is the vienna one, usually black meets f4 with an immediate d5 in that line) but i said king gambit declined rather than vienna to stress the fact that usually white plays 2.Bc4 with the idea of playing an early f4 before developing the king's knight. It's uncommon to play 2.Bc4 if you want your f pawn behind the Nf3.

I couldn't find that many books on the Kings Gambit Declined, but when I play these lines, I usually obtain a nice advantage. The Bishops at c4 and c5 are pretty important. White sometimes plays Na4 to exchange the powerful bishop.

At lower levels, 2.Bc4 is a fairly common way to avoid the Petroff and  to get into an Italian.

Criticism? of course 2...Bc5 is playable and perfectly good :) maybe a tad less flexible than 2...Nf6 or Nc6, since 2...Bc5 somewhat limits black options. There was a recent SOS article suggesting 3.d4!? as leading at least to equality, but objectively it's not something that should scare black away from 2...Bc5.

can't white just retreat to b3 (i mean 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 d5?! 3.Bxd5 Nf6 4.Bb3)? 4...Nxe4 5.Qe2 doesn't look line black is getting his pawn back. It's late evening here, so don't be too harsch if i missed an hanging piece somewhere :P

Can't white just exchange the bishop while butchering black pawn formation with 8.Bxe6 fxd6 and then castle with a solid extra pawn? He is not even behind in development. I'm not saying that 8.Ba5 must be bad, but with a solid extra pawn as white i would exchange pieces and quietly finish my development rather than looking for tactical adventures. In that line it looks like white is doing everything he can to fall behind in development.

I know you don't really believe in this opening, i'm not trying to preve you wrong or anything. Just i wonder what's the practical value of this stuff when a series of moves (up to 9.O-O) everyone would find even in a bullet game seems to put black in serious shortage of compensation.

right pfen, my Qe2 is sort of naive looking at it again. everytime white takes with the queen on e5 he is going to give black a couple or tempi, and at least some compensation, i suppose.

yes, i meant naive in the sense of somewhat too direct; flexibility is always a great thing. I think one of the  commonest defects in patzers of my skill is a tendency toward needlessly forcing play, we ofter miss the strenght of a "quiet" move like Nf3 here. Thanks for helping, I always appreciate your comments.