Choise of opening: Spanish or Italian-Spanish

I am about 1600 and my main weapon against e5 is ruy lopez, I like it very much but there is much teory to know here and I am not sure it is not too much for my rating. I am wondering what would be better to me in the long run, to continue playing spanish or to switch to similar positions, but with teoretical smaller chance for advantage. I mean those positions precisely:

It is quite similar to close ruy lopez, but it avoids those archangel, schlieman, open etc. Only concern to me is its soundness, I mean isn't it too easy for black to just equalise? black isnt weakend on the queenside in comparition to ruy lopez and white will spend more time to get d4

maybe more experienced players could give me advice what will be better to my chess developing, should i switch to this slow italian game?

I think at your state of development the idea of switching to the Italian Game is just brilliant, as you can bypass a lot of theory and thus concentrate on your chess improvement instead of wasting time on learning opening lines by heart.

Especially the line you present here has a good reputation, maybe equalizing is a little bit easier for Black here than in the Ruy, but there is still a lot of play left in the position, as early exchanges are rare. So you should be fine here.

If you want to study some games in this line check out the games of Sergey Tiviakov, he is a strong grandmaster and employs this line of the Italian at times. He is also renowned for his treatment of the 1.e4 c5 2.c3 Sicilian, another venomous side line you might consider to add to your repertoire, avoiding all the Open Sicilian theory.

Thx for your response, I also feel that this variation would allow me to focus on developing my general play, in ruy above 10 moves are just automatic:)

Speaking about Tiviakov, u probably have in mind alapin sicilian with delayed d4, in fact I play alapin vs sicilian (i could also play rossolimi/moscow but 2...  e6 prevent it so it isnt practical choice) , but I cant decide if to play this variation or this one

Variation above in my opinion seems to be more tricky in my opinion.

If you are interested in othere choices in my repertoire, I play tarrash vs french, panov vs caro , 3.nf3 vs scandinavian, exchange alechine and 150 attack vs pirc/modern

Looks like we have some similarities in our repertoire, although I must admit that I am switching back to 1.e4 now after some years of exclusive 1.Nf3 playing. Before that I had a lot of IQP lines in my repertoire, including the Panov and the Alapin; I even considered playing the Italian line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Bd2 Bxd2+ 8.Nbxd2 d5, which also leads to an IQP.

Well, I tried playing the Ruy Lopez for about a year and I think I really misfocused by learning lines instead of simple chess maneuvering and tactics.  I've only recently switched to the Italian and already I feel less tension in my shoulders and I find it is so much simpler to understand the positions.

The best thing i can do is probably play some online games in this variation to make final decision, I must admit that i have very good results in ruy lopez, black so often blunders a central pawn or ends in extremely passive position, I am not sure italian will give me this but I will try it, what I am worried about it is very easy to play d5 by black, for example that variation

Ok, I don't know too much about this but I always play 5 d4 and the response is usually exd4 6 cxd4 ...is this a preferable variation that you've shown?

No look at the variation above, I play 5.d3 , 5.d4 is too messy fo me and white is left with IQP in version i really dont like, I like 5.d3 cause it reminds close spanish

@darnok: I don't understand, why you choose 10. Bc2.  I think, the bishop is misplaced there and it looks like you want to avoid exchanges at all cost. It might be a better approach to activate the knights. The move 10. Nbd2 looks promising. The b-knight isn't needed on the queen side. You can transfer it via f1 to g3 from where it might get to the outpost on f5. If your opponent takes the bishop, you can recapture with the queen.

I play ruy lopez and maybe I am too dogmatic about not exchanging that bishop:), anyway this is good move suggested by some good players, as it is yours as well, matter of taste

its looks like sam collins new dvd might be exactly what you want

i have this already, but i still cannot decide whether to give up ruy lopez or not... just hard decision as i play spanish quite a long time

i think it woudnt be wise, maybe i should play e4 d4 and even c4?:) This statement :"you shouldn't be playing one opening anyway because it will stunt your growth as a player." would be ok if i would play something like colle or veresov, e4 is rich enough, i will improve my game as there are many blacks answers to 1. e4, and even italian or spanish is complex enough

personally i played the lopez but i stopped because i just wasnt facing it enough for me to be worth the time so i went on to learn the "easy" theori in the italian games having more time for the sicilians, french and such and the millions of crazy unknown lines i face

Umm, to #9, id just like to point out that I've always played the evans gambit in that position on move #4

If your level is 1600, I prefer that you go through the lines of the italian, I'm roughly the same level  with you, and I have many good games with the italian by playing the evans gambit, or fried liver attack, analyze it completely and you can find some lines where your opponent is uncomftable, but if you want to continue with the ruy lopez, analyze only the lines that you like to play for example if you don't want to play closed positions, don't play the closed chigorin.

After 3. Bc4 I'd play the Two Knights Defence (3. ... Nf6).

confusing this

what do you mean? are you referring to ruy lopez with d3 as italian spanish?