Italian over Spanish?

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Godzilla died while trying to read that

which line is that

also traxler exists in italian

also, just coz ONE LINE has the king move a bit doesnt mean anything about the ruy as a whole

whites king is perfectly safe in most lines

i think that the mentioned line is the one shown on page two lmao

GUYS YALL GOTTA STOP MAKING THE RUY A TABOO OPENING!

Who cares about a centipawn of advantage in a 60 line computer game that won't be ever played by humans, come on.

All proper openings end in equality so far.

Agreed. Just the difference is, some openings end in equality at move no. 10, while some openings end in equality on move no.20

if it will end in equality on move 20 it was already equal unless white made a mistake

better way to put it imo: some lines have a narrower path to equality than others, for both sides (though the squeeze is much harder for black)

Tell me, Do you know Bf8 to put your bishop on g7?

RUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would go for Italian

(a) Easy

(b) Full of tricks

(c) Full of initiative

(d) Full of attack

First off saying openings don't matter is a stupid comment. If openings don't matter then you shouldn't be here.

The computer evaluations are really not meaningful for positions that have been well-investigated by humans because humans have already discovered and gone through everything themselves. Computers are best for tactical positions where they can find a tactic that a human might miss or maybe occasionally an unusual series of moves humans might miss but end up really good - what Stockfish says about the Ruy Lopez vs Italian is completely unmeaningful. If a computer prefers one line, but humans do much better in another, which entity is "right"? Both of them are "right" - the computer plays what it does best in and the human plays what it does best in. That's why everyone doesn't always play the same line, also the element of surprise. The worst "best" is really a misnomer for most chess positions.

More food for thought is how computer engines often don't agree with each other at all and over the years they "change their minds" themselves. One year it's saying one thing, the next it's saying something else. Kasparov has remarked on this, that he has written books and given computer evaluations as the final "truth" on positions, only for the computer to come along the next year and say something completely different, spoiling the final "truth"s he has put in his books. If even the former world champion himself gets hypnothized by computer evaluations it's easy for anyone to.

Furthermore when engines play either of these openings and given maximum time and resources these days they both end up in a draw almost 100% of the time. So what's the difference, how could it prefer one to the other? They can go deep into the endgame, or to tactics or things so out of human depth that it's just never going to make sense to a human. To humans it's just random nonsense, they're evaluating some lines to the endgame and due to some quirk of the position, maybe a knight more advanced a rank, when even if they got that position a human couldn't do better from it and may actually do worse.

Statistics and traditional theory do happen to slightly prefer the Spanish also. However statistics lie all the time, it could be for all kinds of reasons that one does incrementally better. Furthermore the Ruy Lopez is more popular than the Italian, that means people should and likely do know it better. That means that playing the Italian once in a while will come as a minor surprise to the opponent. This is what Super GMs do - usually they play the Ruy Lopez, but now and again the Italian. They're not able to play the same opening every time because the opponent would simply prepare immaculately against it.

If you're a lower rated player on the other hand you can likely get away with playing solely an opening like the Italian. You'll eventually arrive at a point where you are starting to forget theory and that's where you can start to mix it up a little. The Italian is very rich and can be fun playing into the two knights defence and the like, on the other hand you can play it like the Ruy lopez. There are lower rated players that continue to play vastly more simple openings and a really good player called Weaver Adams used to even play the exact same opening every time.