Now concerning the strongest players in the world and the openings they pick. They often dont really have a reason. Usually, they learned their openings before they became so strong, these are the positions they understand, and they stick with it. When one of them plays something offbeat, by the way, it often gives them a tremendous edge. Im thinking of stuff like the game SHort won against l'ami in the 4 knights, the game carlsen won vs topolov in the alekhine, and the great results the reintoduction of the dragon has had. I play the bishops opening against elite players in casual games and i almost always have a very good advantage out of the opening, in fact, a better advantage than I know i might have if they were prepared.

That's not true. You went on in that post to give an explaination of why you play the Bishop's Opening, Scotch, etc; if you really think that you have logical reasons for the openings you play and the top chess players in the world do not then you're crazy.

<ive studied the ruy plenty, it used to be all I played, and now that i always play the scotch or bishop's opening i must say that I tend to keep a more solid advantage in either of those than I ever did in the ruy.>

It's pretty much an undisputed fact that the Ruy is stronger than the Scotch, Bishop's Opening, or any other line in the Open Games. I remember that you also said on another page that you play the Alapin Sicilian instead of the Open Sicilian because you don't get why the move 2.Nf3 is played. If you're having trouble with openings like the Ruy or Open Sicilian that are obviously theoretically superior, then the solution is not to avoid them and play 'easier' openings, but instead to study them more so that you understand them well and know how to play them correctly. Personally, the Ruy does much better for me than the Scotch and Italian, but I must admit that it took me a couple years to be able to actually learn it all and be able to play it. All that study time sure pays off though.

<Everyone knows the various methods for black against the ruy, such as the marshall gambit, berlin defense, etc. and these are not refutable. (even stuff like the classical defense seem to give black a perfectly happy position) I do not know if black has some clear path to equality in the bishop's opening, but if there is one, nobody is playing it against me or in the GM games i search thru every week in my repitoire.>

Yo, <chessman95>, chess is a game. He can play any openings he wants.

the conventional idea is: the Ruy offers superior chances,compared to the various KP gambits that White can play, or the Italian etc, against strong players who won't make unforced errors.

the slogan for UNC basketball last year was "take everything, give up nothing" and this is White's idea in the Spanish. The bishop goes to the a2-f7 diagonal, but without ever being exposed on c4. In some of the closed lines, Black even gets faster development, but White is supposed to get better long-term chances if he plays correctly.

Remember what a shock it was when Kasparov broke out the Scotch against Karpov in a World Championship match? GMs had written all that stuff up to a draw because Black has too many risk-free options compared to the Ruy. And his novelties in that game have been more or less neutralized in the long run, too.

<You keep pretending like you think the ruy is obviously superior to anything else but I simply find in your comments the signs of a fairly neophyte player who clings to false ideas supported by shallow and naive assumptions.>

a) win for white
b) draw
c) win for black

The problem is we do not know which of the above is true. To claim anything of the above as true a formal proof would have to be presented. No such formal proof exists at present which is to say that chess has not been solved yet. Statistical evidence is not a proof (like to claim that most games are a draw). Agreement between GMs is not a proof. Statements like "theoreticians claim that" are not proofs. Given the nature of the game only the extension of the Nalimovs end game tables to the initial position of the game would constitute the proof. I am afraid that it is not going to be possible for quite a long time. It should be added that the fact that the optimal play exists for both sides in any position does not mean that there is only one optimal move in the given position. There may be more than one. An optimal move is any of the moves that GUARANTEES the optimal end result regardless of what the opponent will do. Of course, if the chess is a forced win for white then there are no optimal moves for black. But we could change the objective of the game: Each side tries to play as many moves as possible before the game is decided (this is what is done in practice anyway). Then the following thing can be claimed: there exists a minimal number of moves before the game can be decided and there are optimal moves for both white and black in any position (there may be more than one) which guarantee the achievment of the optimal result. So, even if the chess can always be won by white, black with perfect play can assure that it won't happen before move number x (the value of x is not known, but it exists).

Another point to make is this: From the practical point of view refuting King's Gambit is equivalent to solving chess. It is so because the ORDER of MAGNITUDE of the number of variations needed is essentially the same as that for solving the entire game. Any discussions about this subject are simply pointless. Nobody is going to refute KG, or 1.h4 or any other first one-two movements by White or Black in the forseeable future. Technically it is not possible as of yet. Maybe with quantum computing, who knows? The only considerations with choosing openings can be practical ones. There is no "theory" in chess to be precise. Theory proves things. Chess books only discuss things, to be precise, discuss the empirical practice of the best players. Neither more nor less.

Thus, a lot of the preceding discussion on these pages was perfectly pointless. I hope we can avoid this for the future. Let us discuss ideas but not talk about absolute truths. The absolute truth can only be found in Nalimovs endgame tables. As for now it is a very small portion of the game of chess.

"Eugene Nalimov (born 1965 in Novosibirsk, U.S.S.R.) is a chess programmer and Microsoft employee.

Starting in 1998, he wrote a tablebase generator which included many different endgames. He received a ChessBase award at the ChessBase meeting in Maastricht in 2002 for his work.[1]"

In practice Nalimov tablebase refers to any database of precalculated optimal moves for chess endings. At present optimal moves have been calculated for all 6 pieces set-ups.

Such a database is available here:

http://chessok.com/?page_id=361

And a valuable two cents, I'll be bound!