Play the Ruy Lopez like Karpov

The Ruy Lopez (also known as the Spanish Game) is one of the oldest openings yet one of the most complicated openings.

The opening (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5) is named after the 16th-century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura. 5 centuries (or more than 500 years) later it is still one of the most common openings.

Ruy López de Segura

What make this opening so hard are the vast options that both White and Black have to deviate from main lines (which have also been heavily studied), and particularly the long term (and sometimes very abstract) ideas that appear in some lines.

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And to explain some of the most common and important ideas I selected one model game played by probably the best player who ever played the Ruy Lopez: former world champion Anatoly Karpov.

Anatoly Karpov

In this game where Anatoly Karpov met Wolfgang Unzicker in Nice (1974), we’ll see Karpov at his best. First, getting a space advantage and neutralizing one of his opponent’s knights. As the game progresses, we’ll see one of Karpov’s best skills: slowly improving his position to tie down his opponent.

While teaching us how to play the Ruy Lopez, Karpov will also teach you how to improve your positional understanding.