Spanish game vs Italian

Not all Italian lines are that complex but it's not like these Spanish lines are so difficult to understand.

The Bird is not a good move. It doesn't matter how well you play after that, it's just a dumb move and doesn't offer anything for black. You move a piece twice in the opening just to be traded off and leave a weak doubled pawn on d4 with no development. a6, Nf6, f5, Bc5 are all decent moves. Nd4 is a joke and not a serious challenge to the Ruy Lopez.

The pawn isn't a space advantage and doesn't put pressure on white. It can be picked off or white can even just play around it and it doesn't do anything.

White has a pawn in the centre on e4, a developed bishop and is ready to castle while black has done nothing for their kingside development and only has an overextended d4 pawn which doesn't do that much. Black is going to be the one under pressure as they haven't developed anything and the king is left in the centre of the board.

It's an incredibly ugly and poor defence for black. No-one plays this in serious games.

This is what the Bird is playing for

Pinned and pressured on all sides. Overextended, double isolated pawns on the d file.

Compared to

Solid, developed, castled.

bro the open is even better, LOOK AT BLACKS COUNTERPLAY

The Open is also a good choice. Anything but the Bird.

samuel is there any chance you know why the open is much more uncommon nowadays?

I don't know well tbh. I know this move 9. Nbd2 limits black's options so they can't play this Italian variation.

I also remember an Open Ruy game Polgar vs Mamedyarov where she absolutely crushed him. I don't know if that's got anything to do with it though.

your bishop there is bad, you have doubled pawns and you have only 1 piece thats really doing anything while your double pawn will be a target and white will get a big advantage in development and space

blacks only hope is that white is stupid enough to mess up some ¨trap¨ that you learned on

¨how to crush the ruy lopez with the bird¨

I gave c6 as the line because it's actually the best move for black. The line I gave is black's best. With best play that's what you get.

Qg5 is not good for black. It doesn't threaten anything. All it does is move the bishop to c4 where it's better placed anyway. Bc5 doesn't do anything as it's blocked by the pawn. d3 now comes with tempo on the queen and locks the black dark square bishop behind the pawn. Now white will have f4 and Nd2. White will gain more space and be way better developed.

"How to crush Ruy Lopez with the Bird"

This is basically just the Blackburne Shilling Gambit against the Ruy Lopez. If they somehow blunder taking the pawn then you're better (which they have no reason to as anyone somewhat decent will at least see that the bishop is attacked.) If they take the knight then you're worse.