Oh ok I guess that makes sense. So it's like a mutual "waste of time?" And yes, I do believe this helps me understand a bit more.
Quick Question about the Ruy Lopez Opening
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To quote GM Sam Shankland, chess is a goofy game. In particular, it's full of contradictions. While you're correct that moving a piece twice in the opening is, in general, a bad idea, it turns out that white's king's bishop is actually best developed to b5 in the Spanish Game (aka Ruy Lopez). The alternative 3.Bc4 is playable and potentially more dangerous to black, but if black knows what he's doing, white can't claim any real theoretical opening advantage (an overrated concept among club players to be sure). The Spanish Game is popular among high level players precisely because it's thought to be a better try for giving white an opening advantage than something like 3.Bc4 or 3.Nc3.
The idea behind 3.Bb5 is to exert pressure against black's e5 pawn. However, white isn't threatening to immediately play Bxc6 and Nxe5 because after 1.e4,e5 2.Nf3,Nc6 3.Bb5,a6 4.Bxc6,dxc6 5.Nxe5?!,Qd4! black forks both white's knight on e5 and white's pawn on e4, and after white's next move, black will play Qxe4+ and be at least equal.
However, after (for example): 1.e4,e5 2.Nf3,Nc6 3.Bb5,a6 4.Ba4,Nf6 5.O-O,Be7 6.Re1, now white is threatening Bxc6 and Nxe5 since white's e4 pawn is now guarded by his rook on e1. It's for this reason that black usually plays 6...b5 here.
So I've recently started to really get into chess lately, and I need some help trying to understand this. Isn't it kind of a waste to be moving 3...Bb5 because then the pawn from a7 can threaten your bishop? So then white can either take the knight on c6, or the bishop can retreat. But isn't moving a piece consecutively bad, especially that early in a game?
I'm obviously not an expert of any kind, and sorry if this has been asked before. I'm just hoping someone can explain the reasoning behind it and help me understand. Thank you.