Opening Bias

This is something I have always wondered, particularly at the higher levels.

Is it just us lowly amateurs, or do GMs actually suffer from a case of Opening Bias?

What I mean by that is having a distorted outlook about a particular opening such that it practically blocks your mind from thinking objectively about the other side's possibilities and ideas.

For example, Evgeny Sveshnikov scored well over 70% playing the White side of the Advance French to the point that in his 2007 two book work on the Advance French, he goes as far to say 1...e6 is a mistake, gives it a question mark, and says 1...c5 is better.

From my own personal experience in over the board play, if I only take into factor games against people no more than 50 points below me, and of course include all games against higher opposition, I have distorted results, in my favor, on the Black side of the London System, having played both 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 g6 3.e3 Bg7 4.Nf3 d6 5.h3 O-O 6.Be2 Nbd7 and now 7.O-O Ne4 or 7.Nbd2 Qe8, both intending 8...e5, and also via 1.d4 e6 2.Bf4 f5 3.e3 e6 4.Nf3 b6, and I have even played, a few times,  1.d4 e6 2.Bf4 d5 3.e3 Bd6 4.Bg3 Nf6 intending ...O-O and ...b6, delaying ...c5 until Black is ready to break.

Distorted to the point that I literally cannot ever see myself playing the London System as White.  I have played some of its close relatives like the Colle, Torre, Trompowsky, and Barry Attack, but not the London pretty much due to a bias.

Are people like the late Sveshnikov and myself outliers?  Or is this actually a thing, even at levels of GM, IM, FM, etc?

Certainly. I've found several openings to be so dry, refuted, or simply ughhhh! I would never even think of playing them. I also have an unusual repertoire vs the London system that completely goes against the spirit of the opening, and makes it unpathed and complicated. I have an enormous score otb and online against it, though that's likely because it was against  opposition that was not quite strong enough to survive a position they had never seen before, even against someone of 'equal' strength. Every game, I seem to reinforce that notion, that the opening is simply bad, and it is simply a grind to 'refute' the lazy choice of the white player. 

So, I actually have the exact same bias as you! I despise London, but have respect for its opening family compatriots, such as the Torre, Trompowsky, and Seirawan systems.

I also have a pledge never to play the French as black or Italian systems as white, possibly because of the latter's association with beginner play. Those are far more reasonable openings than London, but it seems I just have a personal block against them.

It is just us lowly amateurs.

Yes all chess players regardless of playing strength. Have opening bias.

Some more then others, but all players have opening bias.

If you have Chessbase. You can see it, study it, and use their bias against them to trap them.

That is how and why you use Chessbase. To prepare for a player you know you are going to play using Chessbase. If the best chess players did not have a bias. This would not work, and would be a waste of time. 

The System by Berliner, White to play and win by Adams, some folks are opinionated, which is not not bad if it works for them.

The likely interpretation is a feedback loop, they play certain positions above their strength, thus they win a lot from these positions, they like that and assume it's the type of position that's winning, invest more time in it, become even better in it etc.

There's a different way to see this though, acknowledge that for some positions one plays above their average strength, for some below their average strength. Then decide what to do with it, to what extent time will be devoted to "fixing" evaluation & play for positions of suboptimal performance and what to what extent to avoiding them altogether by means of repertoire planning.

It can only be a mix for us common mortals aka amateurs, it's unrealistic to expect to play well both sides of thousands of tabiyas, at the same time our comfort zone should not be too narrow.

Embrace meditation, reflection and non-attachment, the Buddha paved the road to chess mastery and a universal style 😁

Jokes aside, all humans have biases in a lot of things, it's ok, as long as we are aware that something is our bias as opposed to everybody's reality & have some mechanism to cope with our biases.

@1

"Evgeny Sveshnikov scored well over 70% playing the White side of the Advance French to the point that in his 2007 two book work on the Advance French, he goes as far to say 1...e6 is a mistake, gives it a question mark, and says 1...c5 is better."

++ Carlsen said the same.
'The French Defence. In my younger years I used to consider it at best a second-rate opening, and I once even lost a bet with one of my friends, and as a result had to play 1... e6 in all my games with Black in a Super-GM tournament. Fortunately my friend was greedy, and took money instead. I believe that both 1...c5 and 1...e5! are better choices, but since I desperately wanted to win this game (I was trailing the leaders Kramnik and Shirov by 1 point at this stage) I decided to try something new.'

Already Steinitz said the same.
'I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all openings.'

So based on your theory, rating is luck.

If I play in 150 tournament games in 2023, 75 of them with Black, I could, in theory, have a 100 point swing based solely on who I face with Black.

On your theory, if I face 1.e4 65 of the 75 times I have Black, I might be 100 points higher at the end of 2023 than I would be if I faced 1.e4 20 of the 75 times because my understanding of and ability to defend with the French Defense is light years above any defense to 1.d4.

Is that in essence what you are saying?  That I could wind up 2100 vs still at 2000 at the end of 2023 based solely on who I face rather than any work put into the game?

Nowhere did I claim it is luck. I also didn't quantify it in terms of rating points nor in terms of 1.e4 vs d4, but in essence indeed, if you get lots of positions that you play well, your score ( and thus rating ), will be higher than if you get more positions where you are uncomfortable and don't play as well.

It's really uneven amounts of work or uneven inclinations on parts of the game that would be the underlying cause, but this can manifest in a scenario where one happens to play opponents that manage to bring those parts to the forefront.

Whether you could or not fluctuate 100 rating points depends on the probability of the scenario you described, and whether your assessment of its impact is correct. But if your assessment of the impact is correct and the scenario does materialize (I can't know how probable that is) then indeed you would see a rating change.