why is ruy lopez considered the strongest

I consider the Queen's Gambit the strongest lol

I just made a quick check of my megabase 2014. I searched for games in which both players had at least 2500 elo. This is how often the following openings occured:

Ruy Lopez 14224 times

Italian 1871 times

Scotch 1572 times

Vienna 268 times

King's Gambit 201 times

So how do we interprete these statistics? FoS seems to think that grandmasters are dumb creatures of habit who more or less brainlessly reproduce what they learned, and teach the same to the next generation. It might also be a conspiracy of grandmasters trying to make the Ruy Lopez look good for some unknown reasons. Behind this may or may not be a plan to world domination.

Personally I'm leaning towards the interpretation that grandmasters know rather well which lines pose their opponents the most critical problems, and they tend to play those lines more often than not. In other words, if the Ruy Lopez is played more than 3 times as often than all the other five listed openings together, this is a very good indication for it being stronger, more dangerous, having more punch than the others, and not by a small degree.

But I still like the queen's gambit

Grow up and stop getting back into the argument, move on will ya.

That's good but this thread here is about the Ruy.

That's part of Reb tried to explain to you when your arrogance blinded you and you became a rabid dog.

kco wrote:

MASS_ATTACKER wrote:

But I still like the queen's gambit

That's good but this thread here is about the Ruy.

Yes, indeed

In other words, popularity. 

Well said.

The Scotch played less than the Italian? Stupid grandmasters.

Try and bring any of these threads back to life ! 

http://www.chess.com/forum/search?keyword=queen%27s+gambit

Why are you arguing?

Dude, it's 2:00 am in Georgia. Your bottle of Scotch must be empty by now. Mine is. Gute Nacht.

@ Ziryab post # 683

The diagram you have posted is not a true example of the Marshall Attack.

The move order which was shown was faulty.

Which any player playing the black side should know not to do faulty moves in the line and proceed correctly.

The below diagram is the true Move order of the Marshall Attack

Note the problem with Ziryab diagram on 683.

Is the move 8.h3

This nuance is of great importance.

The reason the Marshall Attack can been seen as lets say scary.

Is because white plays the move 8.c3?!

When white plays the move 8.c3 he has bascially deprived his knight the c3 square coupled with the fact his queen side development is hugely slacking.

Which means black aims to give up 1 pawn in order to do a hurry up attack taking advantage of whites undeveloped pieces on the queen side.

This is the visiual you can see:

All of which I have talked about in my article with this lil funny cartoon image.

The move 8.h3 was one of the modern moves played trying to discourage the Marshall Attack while at the same time allowing for a smooth transition into the regular mainline. Which often sees 9.h3

By playing the move 8.h3 white has not deprived his knight the c3 square; thus, allowing white to have some better defensive chances. Since if the pawn move c3 is played the only place the knight would be able to develop would be on a3 miles away from the king side action black is trying to drum up.

So this is why the example given is a bad example of the Marshall Attack.

Once white plays 8.h3 it is recommended for black to play 8...d6 and not d5.

Giving up a pawn when white really isn't as badly under developed would be some what questionable.

In the game Ziryab showed the little gurl playing white was probably confused and did the horrible pawn move c3.

If she would of knew of this little nuance she could of played Nc3 at the appropriate time and things would of gotten very interesting than.

Which shows that after 8.h3 it is recommended to play 8.d6

Which after 8...d6 has been played. White than continues with 9.c3 and we have successfully returned back to the mainline position.

TA DA

The mainline move order is with the below diagram: So you can see how the position reaches the same position by a move order trick. Which didn't trick us because we know what to do.

Here is a wonderful example of the Marshall Attack.

Between Anand Viswanathan and John Nunn

You can just see that under development can't you right before your eyes?

All the way to move 37!!!!!

Take a snap shot at move 23!!  1 pawn was given up for that.

This man playing white is Anand a World Champion.

If that doesn't show you the power of the Marshall Attack nothing ever will.

I mean just look at the position at move 23.

Nothing is developed.

We are not talking about scrubs playing chess this man is a World Champion. He was under intense pressure.

Its alsome. I tell you this is the way to play it for sure.

I would have thought that your fallacies should be obvious to you by now, but apparently they are not. Okay, let's take this from a different angle. You apparently think that the computer evaluation after the moves 1.e4 e5 1.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 has any relevance. My question: How does the computer arrive at its evaluation of maybe +0.08 or +0.12 or whatever else the evaluation is?

No

I did not give a 3 move computer evaluation.

I gave the mainline which has 9 moves being played.

I never said 3.Bb5 is even. I do not believe 3.Bb5 is even. It is obvious white has a slight advantage with 3.Bb5 it puts pressure on the black positoin.

My Assessement was only based on after the mainline book moves have been played which goes about 9 moves for white. At which point black has several diferent mainlines they can play.

Obviously after black plays there 9th move more book moves will follow.

However, I believe the position is some what even before black plays the 9th move.

Do you believe the below diagram is even or not?

I'm in class E and I saw that instantly. lololol @ this thread, it's not even that funny anymore

5OS, surely the fact top players so frequently play the ruy means that they think its the best option they have at a good result.

You can say its just a fashion for all players to play the ruy. But in a game like chess where its extensively studied by intelligent people, maybe its not a coincidence the ruy became the opening of choice. Maybe its because it is an opening where there such a lot of hidden depth that white can still find ways to trouble black despite the fact black will also have studied the opening in as great a depth.

You argue that Kasparov playing the scotch in a WCC shows that it must not be inferior because why would he throw away an advantage? Surely him studying the opening before hand and therefore having a better familiarity with it than karpov explains that?