Ruy Lopez 8...Na5 by playing 8.a3 (8.c3 or 8 a4 are perfectly playable as well) and after 8...0-0 (the immediate 8...Na5 is also feasible) 9.Nc3 we have reached a modern tabiya of the Ruy Lopez. This position was first reached in a high-level encounter between Viswanathan Anand and Michael Adams, Grenke Chess Classic 2013. 6.d3 has gained wide popularity among the top players and has almost supplanted the Ruy Lopez main line with 6.Re1. Peter Svidler has dedicated an entire video series to the fashionable 6.d3 line. In the Averbakh Variation (C87), named for Yuri Averbakh, Black defends the threatened e-pawn with
Ruy Lopez move carries no immediate threat, Black can respond in a wide variety of ways. Traditionally, White's objective in playing the Ruy Lopez is to spoil Black's pawn structure; either way Black recaptures following the exchange on c6 will have negative features for him, though he thereby gains the . However, in modern practice, White does not always exchange bishop for knight on c6, preferring the retreat 4. Ba4 if chased by 3...a6. The theory of the Ruy Lopez is the most extensively developed of all open games, with some lines having been analysed well beyond move thirty. At nearly every