For what...insomnia?
Ruy Lopez Opening vs. Italian Game: Which one is better?
Sort:
“...as someone once said, you can’t claim to be a real chess player unless you have played the Ruy Lopez as Black and White!”
—GM Neil McDonald in the introduction of Starting Out: 1.e4.
—GM Neil McDonald in the introduction of Starting Out: 1.e4.
At beginner's level, and up to 1500 (at least), italian should be the choice for white.
For some reasons, Bc4 is more natural and easier to explain/understand.
It is easy to see that f7 is a weakness and it can be a good idea to attack it with a long diagonal for the bishop on c4.
While Bb5, is more sophisticated and not easy to spot what it the point to go here. For example, beginner could think we play Bb5 to attack Nc6 which protects e5, but basically, white doesn't threat anything for the moment!
For instance : 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.Nxe5 Qd4 recovers the pawn for black.
So my advice : play what is simple and easy to understand. If u feel comfortable with Bb5, ok fine.
But I like to recommend straightforward stuff to begin with an opening repertoire. Giuoco Piano or Evans gambit are very educational, italian 4 knights is another good idea to understand and use pins...
Winning With The Slow But Venomous Italian by Muller & Souleidis...
Read the Preface and the Introduction (pp. 9-10) of the preview-excerpt of this book here...
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Winning_with_the_Slow_but_Venomous_Itali/HokfDgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=the+slow+but+venomous+italian&printsec=frontcover
also check out...
Introduction to The Italian Game...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-the-italian-game
The Ruy Lopez Opening has been known as an aggressive opening, but the Italian
Game has also been known as a very good opening. The computer shows the Italian Game is better, but it all comes down on preference. Which one in your opinion is better?