Stupid Caro Kann!

Many years ago I used to hate the Caro-Kann, then one day I decided that if it drove me this crazy, maybe I should learn to play it myself. When I did, I became a better chess player, and I also learnt that the Caro is not boring, I was just ignorant. There are tons of interesting lines White can play against it. I play the Advance Tal against it now (with Nf3 against 3...c5), but there's also the Fantasy obviously, the Panov, the Accelerated Panov, the Two Knights, and if you want something more dubious there are tons of weirder tries like the Hillbilly, the von Henning Gambit, the Apocalypse Attack and so on.

So if you hate the Caro-Kann, I would highly recommend learning to play it from the Black side. Then you can move on to hating openings which genuinely deserve to be hated, like the Colle System.

Learning to play the openings you hate to face on the opposite side is a very good idea.

I mean the London is boring though, because it's the same pawn structure every time and seeks to shut down play in the center of the board. It's not bad, but it is boring. I have a line I like against it now so it's fine, but it definitely used to annoy me.

One of the strengths of the Caro as an opening for beginner-intermediate players imo is that it exposes them to different pawn structures. The Carlsbad structure in the Exchange, French structures in the Advance, the so called Caro-Kann structure where White trades e for d and gets a pawn on d4, IQP structures in the Panov, etc.

London system is just for beginner

Like Magnus Carlsen.

lol

This thread reminds me so much of Jonathan Rowson's remark from his excellent "The Seven Deadly Chess Sins", that openings play a huge role for players' identities. Strictly speaking, openings are just a tool, but for some reason, we like to define ourselves as "Caro-Kann players" and take pride in that. This applies even more to dubious openings such as the Blackmar-Diemer or the Stafford, which have an almost religious following.

As for the Caro-Kann, I've always wondered why it still has the reputation of being a solid, "boring" positional opening. Some lines in the advance variation or the Panov attack are extremely sharp.

Someone sounds frustrated. What'd the Caro-Kann do to you?

Also, I disagree with the C-K being "passive". Black literally attacks White's e-pawn on move 2.

fru342