Ruy Lopez
Opening course for White · ECO C88
Ask about the knight, then never let go.
3.Bb5 attacks the knight that defends e5, and it does not win a pawn. It never does. What it does is start a conversation Black has to answer on every move for the next twenty, which is why the opening has been the main line for four hundred years and why it costs more memorising than anything else on this shelf. The repertoire here is the classical one: 4.Ba4, castle, Re1, c3 and d4, and the queen's knight walks b1 to d2 to f1 to g3 while a4 pokes at Black's queenside. Two places where a club player should not follow the top of the profession are handled deliberately. The Marshall Attack gets declined with 8.a4 instead of memorising twenty moves of a pawn sacrifice, and the Berlin gets 4.d3 instead of the endgame Kramnik used to hold Kasparov. Both choices are what the coaches who write for club players recommend, and both are still current main-line theory.
- Chapters
- 7
- Lines
- 27
- Traps
- 2
- Sources
- 26
Nothing to review. Learn the next line.
Next: The shape of every line in this course, against the Closed main line, 3...a6 4.Ba4 Nf6.
Part of your daily work.
- Learn
- Walk the line with the coach, a note on the moves that need one.
- Recall
- Play it from memory. Learned lines come back on a schedule.
- Tempo
- The same line against the clock, for a score to beat.
- Off book
- The opponent leaves the book with a real move; Stockfish prices your answers.
Before the moves: the big ideas
The pawn on e5 is never free
Every beginner plays 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.Nxe5 at some point and every one of them loses a piece to ...Qd4 or ...Qg5, forking the knight and something else. The bishop on b5 is not attacking e5, it is attacking the piece that defends it, and the difference is the whole opening. Play the position, not the tactic.
The bishop retreats twice and stays forever
Ba4 and then Bb3 look like wasted moves and they are the point. From b3 the bishop looks at f7 for the rest of the game and drops back to c2 when Black chases it, where it lines up behind the queen at the black king. Never trade this bishop off without a reason. It is called the Spanish bishop for a reason.
c3 and d4, then Nb1-d2-f1-g3
This is the skeleton in almost every line. The pawns take the centre, the queen's knight walks around the back to the kingside, and Re1 and h3 make room for both. If you learn nothing else, learn the route: knight to d2, then f1, then g3 and sometimes f5. It is the same manoeuvre in the Chigorin, the Breyer, the Zaitsev and the anti-Marshall.
Decline what you cannot out-memorise
The Marshall Attack is a sound pawn sacrifice with a book of theory behind it, and 8.a4 sidesteps it for one tempo. The Berlin endgame is holdable and dry, and 4.d3 keeps queens on. Neither is a cop-out, both are played at the top, and both mean the time you have goes into positions you will actually reach.
The lines, chapter by chapter
In learning order. The coach serves review one line a day; open any line yourself when you want it now.
Start Here: The Question and the Answer
1 line
Nine moves, no theory to memorise, and the two things that make this opening what it is: the bishop that never gets traded, and the pawn on e5 that is never actually hanging.
The Closed Main Line
6 lines
Six named ways for Black to arrange the pieces after 9.h3. White usually builds with d4, but the knight route and the moment to challenge the queenside depend on Black's setup.
Declining the Marshall: 8.a4
3 lines
When Black castles on move seven instead of playing ...d6, the Marshall Attack is on: 8.c3 d5 and a pawn sacrifice with a book behind it. 8.a4 costs one tempo and takes the whole book off the table.
The Open Ruy: 5...Nxe4
3 lines
Black takes the pawn and gives back the centre. The positions are sharper than anything in the Closed chapter and the pieces come out fast on both sides.
The Tarrasch trap in the OpenTrap
against 9...Be7 10.Re1 O-O 11.Nd4, and Black defends the wrong way · 13 moves
New
The Berlin: 3...Nf6
4 lines
The most popular defence at the top and the one that turns the Ruy Lopez into an endgame. This course plays 4.d3, keeps the queens on, and shows the endgame so you know what you are declining.
The Other Third Moves
7 lines
Six alternatives to 3...a6. The Cozio and Fianchetto need immediate central play; the sharper defences demand their own concrete answers.
The Tarrasch trap in the SteinitzTrap
against 3...d6 4.d4 Bd7 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.O-O Be7 7.Re1 O-O · 16 moves
New
After 4.Ba4
3 lines
Two more Black systems after the bishop drops back, and the one trap in this opening that costs White a piece rather than winning one.
Puzzles from this opening
The Ruy Lopez in brief
The Ruy Lopez is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6, and it is filed under ECO C88. This course teaches it from White's side in 27 drills across 7 chapters, with a coach note on the moves that need one, every position checked with Stockfish at depth 20, and every plan credited to the author who wrote it down.
Lines you will drill
- The shape of every line in this course against the Closed main line, 3...a6 4.Ba4 Nf6
- The Chigorin: 9...Na5 against 9...Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4
- The Breyer: 9...Nb8 against 9...Nb8 10.d4 Nbd7 11.Nbd2
- The Zaitsev: 9...Bb7 against 9...Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2
- The Karpov: 9...Nd7 against 9...Nd7 10.d4 Bf6
- The Kholmov: 9...Be6 against 9...Be6 10.d4 Bxb3 11.axb3
- The Smyslov: 9...h6 against 9...h6 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2 Bf8
- The 8...Bb7 transposition against 7...O-O 8.a4 Bb7 9.d3
- The main 8...b4 test against 8...b4 9.d3 d6 10.a5 Be6
- Dubov's direct ...d5 against 8...d5 9.axb5, the Anti-Anti-Marshall
- The Dilworth against 9...Bc5 10.Nbd2 O-O 11.Bc2 Nxf2
- 9...Be7 and the d3 pawn against 9...Be7 10.Nbd2 Nc5, the pawn push to d3
- The Tarrasch trap in the Open against 9...Be7 10.Re1 O-O 11.Nd4, and Black defends the wrong way
- The main Anti-Berlin: 4...Bc5 against 3...Nf6 4.d3 Bc5 5.Bxc6
- The Anti-Berlin sideline: 4...d6 against 3...Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.O-O Bd7
- The rare Anti-Berlin: 4...Ne7 against 3...Nf6 4.d3 Ne7 5.Nc3 Ng6
- The Berlin Wall, and why we decline it against 4.O-O Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6, the endgame
- The Cozio: 3...Nge7 against 3...Nge7 4.Nc3 g6 5.d4
- The Fianchetto Defence: 3...g6 against 3...g6 4.d4 exd4 5.Bg5
- The Tarrasch trap in the Steinitz against 3...d6 4.d4 Bd7 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.O-O Be7 7.Re1 O-O
- The Steinitz, played correctly against 3...d6 4.d4 Bd7 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.O-O Be7 7.Re1 exd4
- The Classical: 3...Bc5 against 3...Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4
- The Schliemann: 3...f5 against 3...f5 4.d3, the quiet answer
- The Bird: 3...Nd4 against 3...Nd4 4.Nxd4 exd4 5.O-O
- The Modern Steinitz: 4...d6 against 4...d6 5.O-O Bd7 6.c3
- Noah's Ark, avoided against 4...d6 5.d4 b5 6.Bb3 Nxd4
- The Arkhangelsk: 5...b5 and 6...Bc5 against 5...b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 7.c3 d6 8.d4
Theory credited to
- Pavel Eljanov: The Ruy Lopez Breyer VariationMax Muller, ChessBase
- Just a Bluff or Really Good? Dubov's 8...d5Krisztian Szabo, ChessBase Magazine 194
- Play the Marshall: a top-level repertoire against the SpanishGM Ivan Cheparinov, Modern-Chess
- Opening Repertoire: The Ruy LopezFM Joshua Doknjas
- PCO: Practical Chess OpeningsGM Martyn Kravtsiv and Graham Burgess
- Ruy Lopez Guide
- Ruy Lopez closed-defence referenceWikipedia contributors
- The Ruy Lopez: A Guide for BlackGM Leif Johannessen and IM Sverre Johnsen
- The Ruy Lopez — How to torture Black the Spanish way!pocket_hercules, Lichess
- Ruy Lopez early-deviation referenceWikipedia contributors
- Caruana's Ruy LopezGM Fabiano Caruana
- Bologan's Ruy Lopez for BlackGM Victor Bologan
8 branches are deliberately not drilled here, and the course records which and why rather than leaving the gap silent.
Questions
- What is the Ruy Lopez?
- The Ruy Lopez is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6, filed under ECO C88. Ask about the knight, then never let go. 3.Bb5 attacks the knight that defends e5, and it does not win a pawn.
- How do you learn the Ruy Lopez?
- This course splits it into 27 drills across 7 chapters. You play each line from White's side against a coach note that explains the move, then the same lines come back on a spaced-repetition schedule until you can play them without prompting. Every position is verified with Stockfish at depth 20 before it ships.
- Where does the theory in this Ruy Lopez course come from?
- From published work by Max Muller, ChessBase, Krisztian Szabo, ChessBase Magazine 194, GM Ivan Cheparinov, Modern-Chess, FM Joshua Doknjas and the reference sources credited on this page. The engine verifies the moves; the plans and assessments belong to the authors, and every drill records the page or section it came from.