I am sorry to disappoint you Craig but I actually advocate the Exchange Ruy as a reasonable repertoire choice for White, its sound, solid and offers reasonable chances of a slight edge. More importantly this is the type of Opening, where  one can score many points just by familiarising yourself with some of its typical endings and typical middlegame plans.

Having said that however, I would caution against making the mistake of only studying the exchange ruy as White, as it is strategically limited. Even if you intend to play primarily the Exchange Ruy, don't let that rob you from exploring and beneifiting from the strategically rich, diverse and immensely educational mainlines.

Rather than gush on endlessly on the pros and cons of the Ruy and its various branches, and before someone throws the name of Eduardas Rozentalis in my face to cast doubt on my assertions, I will offer a quote from OFWATA:

"The great volume of vitally neccessary information and the complexity of the arising problems lead to the fact that there have always been plenty of players even at the top-level quite willing to avoid the main lines of the Ruy Lopez. White has many ways to do that at his disposal - starting with - 2.f4 up to 4.Bxc6 and even further....I am not planning to criticize the adherents of the King's Gambit, or the endgame specialists who stick to the exchange variation. I only want to share with you my opinion that whoever avoids the main lines of the Ruy Lopez deliberately just reduces his understanding of chess in general" - A. Khalifman, 14th World Chess Champion.

Food for thought there methinks 

Regarding the best, or rather most combative way to counter the Exchange line, I would lean towards 5....Qf6!? as recommended by Nigel Davies in his recent book Play 1.e4 e5!, rather than the more heavily analysed and popular 5...Bg4!?. The theory on 5....Qf6!? is either sketchy, dismissive or downright atrocious. Please note that Kindermann's book offers no salvation here and Kaufman's evaluation is simply wrong. As a practitioner of the Exchange Ruy myself, I would suggest investigating the little tried 6.d3 intending 6...Bg4 7.Be3 with positions strategically similiar to those with h5 and h3 thrown in.    

On a side note, its nice to see the forum back in full swing again.

Adios Amigos

Toppy     

markanton wrote on 01/27/06 at 11:14:40:

Try playing 5.Nc3 instead of 5.0-0. Blacks still have a tendency to play 5...Bg4, which is now ?! or even ? since after 6.h3 Black has to give up the bishop-pair - Black's only compensation for having an inferior pawn structure.

More power to you Craig. As I get older, I have less time to "catch up" on the latest theory, so the Exchange Ruy seemed ideal for me. I have only essayed it in quasi-correspondence chess over Chessworld.net and have achieved a 50% score after 4 games, beating a weaker player and losing to a stronger one, with two draws. I must admit that at no time did I ever feel that I knew exactly what I was doing. Sure, the opening was great, but the middlegame left me floundering a bit. It is a tough question for me, do I play it solely otb and try to use it as a surprise weapon, or do I play it only in correspondence chess where my opponent can "book-up" to ensure I do not get more than a slight advantage? Keep us posted (death to 1. d4), I will be following your ups and downs with the opening! 
Btw, I used to play the Vienna and feel the surprise factor is greater, the positions are better for "cheapo potential" (I.M. Lawrence Day), and my record will probably be no worse over the short run. Still, learning one opening then returning to an old one will often boost your performance in the old. Cheers!!

There's nothing wrong with widening one's horizon - I have myself started experimenting with 1...e5, largely thanks to Kaufman's book. The Berlin ending is interesting for black (and it practically avoids the exchange variation), and perhaps the Marshall gambit is also worth looking at - the sources I've seen seem to regard the latter as completely equal these days. Then Davis recommends the Keres system... So what's all this fuss about how good the Ruy is? 

If you really want to test playing strictly positionally then taking up 1.d4 may be a better solution. QG minority attacks, big pawn centres etc etc. That way, you'd be able to keep your sharper 1.e4 repertoire without getting it mixed up with too much boring stuff... 

It's finally happening. For Christmas I treated myself to Dvoretsky/Yusupov's "Positional Play" book, the second positional book I've ever bought after Nimzowitsch's "My System". Now, the first time I looked at My System, after about 3 days (a few chapters in) I had a league match against someone I outrated by 300 points or so (this was many moons ago when I was a lowly 1500) and thought "I know what will be a good idea. I'll try to play a slow positional game." I managed to grovel a draw in 80 moves as white against a terrible line of the French where he missed so many wins it was unbelieveable, and duly threw my copy on the highest shelf and went back to playing my Latvians, Elephants and King's gambits.

Now, for whatever reason, after reading only the introduction of this new book, I felt confident enough that an important league match, against an 1800 player who's been playing for 40+ years, would be a good time to again test myself. After 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 I hovered my hand over my c-pawn, then played 3.Nf3, and after 3...Nc6 4.Nxd4 a6?!, I entered a maroczy bind. Although I'd completely forgotten the theory to this, I managed to crush my opponent in 25 moves and now I'm determined to make myself a "complete" player. 

So, I've gone out and purchased the Ruy Lopez Exchange book and I'm planning to learn it. I seem to remember in an old post that TN said not to expect anything much from the Exchange Variation (which gives me glee that, even in taking up the Ruy Lopez, I'll still be going against his recommendations!), but from the lines I've seen it looks like white actually does manage to get a tiny, nagging edge against most lines. Since there seems to be no real topic discussing this opening as a whole, I thought I'd create one where fellow Exchange Ruy Lopez players can share their thoughts and pet lines, while those who face it as black can post their variations, discuss new ideas and whether they enjoy playing the black side.

5...f6, 5...Qd6 and 5...Bg4 seem to be the three main variations, as far as I'm aware. However, I've always liked the 5...Bd6 line, and 5...Ne7 looks like an interesting try as well (though I've not taken a serious look at the move). For anyone here who plays this line on a regular basis, what route did you take to start learning the opening?

Best wishes,
Craig