Is it okay to play the Ruy Lopez as black?

I know the Ruy Lopez is a respected opening as white, but is it acceptable for black to just walk into it? I was looking at the game explorer, and according to the statistics black wins less than one quarter of the time. I chose the Ruy Lopez as my defense against the king's pawn a few months ago, and I'm starting to second-guess that decision.

I chose it originally for a few reasons: it's interesting, it's positional, it's not crazy wacko like the Sicilian, it's not very symmetrical like some other annoying openings... but at the end of the day, is it a bad move on black's behalf?

I get slaughtered with it all the time (except for the exchange variation, which I've had great success with), but I enjoy playing it (god knows why, ha ha) so I've stuck with it. I've recently come to think that perhaps the reason I'm not faring well with it is because I'm always trying to WIN, when I should be playing just for a draw.

What do you guys think about playing the Ruy Lopez as black? Do you have any advice?

Chess would be a strange game if 1...e5 were a bad reply to 1.e4, in my opinion.

It's perfectly good, it's the classical reply, it's the recommended reply for beginners, and a drawing weapon at ultimate top level. It should be the first defence to 1.e4 to learn.

But yes, you'd probably do better if you played to equalize first (not the same as playing for a draw!!) and from the moment you have an equal position, try to go for a win.

The Ruy is very playable as white and black . There are many choices as black that are respectable from the very positional to wild and complex .  Try different lines until you find one ( or two ) that you like / understand better than the others. Its also good to have at least one non 3... a6 line as black . I have used 3... g6 and  3... Bc5 for the non 3... a6 lines and they are quite complex and fun to play.

Why?

 So that you are not too easy to prepare for and to avoid getting bored playing the same system over and over and over. Ofcourse not everyone will agree with this and for a long time I only played the breyer lines as black until all my opponents were playing the first 15 moves in 5 minutes or less .

I think if an opening is highly popular for 100s of years then both sides have to be playable..

It's ok to, but you should consider all of your options for what opening you want to play. I remember it being very hard for me to find a plan for black in the closed ruy. These days I know some decent ones, but I still wouldn't want to play it.

what variation of the lopez do you play? in the lopez as black you can play everything from endgame with the berlin defence to counterattacking straight away with the schliemanm with 3...f5 maybe you find something you play better. i understand if you feel you dont play for a win. white has a nice center that is not going away so in lopez you are gonna defend for a while before you start your own action. 3...f5 may be just what you want?

 Doesnt f5 hurt black in the long run, if white nows what he's doing? I read this soomewhere in my opening books. I also recently switched back to play e5. I use to play the french or alkehines defense

If the White knows what they are doing they will have an advantage but it's not like the Black is going to be blown off the board even then. The worst thing that could happen is the Black might be fighting for the draw instead of getting the active game they wanted.

 who in the right mind would want to fight for a draw? (besides me) I took another look at that varition and I might try it out. Well maybe not against stronger oppenents.

here are some quotes from andrew greets "play the lopez" with the white pieces

"the 3...f5 variation has the ability like no other variation covered in this book, to strike terror into the heard of an unsuspecting lopezplayer"

"the mainline of that variation involves memorizing twenty moves of precise theori with deviations at every turn after which whites reward is a tiny positional edge. there are also some sharper possibilities that may offer white chances of a larger advantage but only after navigating some hair-raising complications."

i play lopez as white and i hate facing this. one tiny mistake and i get blown away. but im only around 1600 in club so i dont know how much it matters

an well prepared white player may get draw, but that can be said the other lopezlines and about all openings i think. in sicilian you meet c3variation. in french you get exchangevariation. even najdorf have some drawinglines i heard

I took up 3 ... f5 a few months ago, and have never enjoyed playing agaisnt the Ruy more. I dont win all the time, but even the losses are fun.

This is the start of the introduction of The Ruy Lopez Revisited, by Ivan Sokolov (see http://www.newinchess.com/Shop/Images/PDFs/RLR.pdf ):

"When about twenty years ago I de cided to change my opening repertoire with black and replace the Sicilian with the Ruy Lopez, one of the main problems I faced was the huge amount of theory and the deviations White had at his disposal, should I prepare lines like the Breyer or the Zaitsev Variations. So I real ized that first I would have to learn all the deviations for White (the Exchange Variation, the Qe2 line, the line with d4 with out h3, the d3 variation, etc. – to name just a few), and then, after learning all this theory I would still have to solve the problems Black was facing in the actual Breyer or Zaitsev Variations. The easy solution to this problem was to actually deviate my self. And so I started to learn the Cozio Variation, the Smyslov Variation, the Classical Variation (3...Bc5) and a little later the Jaenisch Gambit.

This was a practical decision which also scored well, because white players
would normally take some time to think as early as move 5 or 6, instead of banging out the first 15 moves, which would have been the case if I had indeed opted for the Breyer or the Zaitsev. Over the years I did broaden my Spanish arsenal with the Open Variation and the Marshall Variation, and only about 15 years later came the time for the Breyer, the Zaitsev and the Chigorin."

The book is about the early alternatives for Black.

If you do well against the exchange variation you might want to try out the berlin defense white is forced to trade his spanish bishop and the pawn structure is simular (almost the exact same) as the exchange.

Walking into the Ruy Lopez was less of a consideration for me when I stopped playing    1. .... e5, I just didn't fancy playing against the King's Gambit and the Scotch Game, somehow learning some Sicilian seemed easier.

 I sometimes avoid the berlin by playing 4 d3 and in these lines white is not forced to part with his spanish bishop.

I recently started a thread because I had a related problem. My issue was that although I was doing well with the Marshall, I was noticing that as my rating climbed that more and more players were becoming aware of the Anti-Marshall, and I'm not too fond of those positions at all.

So I wanted to improve while using a defense that I'm not going to abandon as soon as my opponents know how to face it, and my search was on. These guys gave me some promising suggestions, which I've been exploring, so I'll pass on what I've discovered. 

One of the things I hoped for, but didn't think existed, was a Lopez defense that has a "flavour" like the other Open Games. You get just that in some of the older defenses, like the Classical, Schliemann, Berlin, Berlin Classical, and Jemptymethod's pet g6-f5 line.

Basically, play it like the old school used to play it. Their attitude seemed to be that if white wants to spend a tempo to surrender the bishop pair, opening the d-file for your queen and activating your bishop, so that he can spend another tempo grabbing your e-pawn, leaving his knight in mid-air in the process, then black should be delighted to oblige, because it also further opens the board for your two bishops.

Thus you see in those old games that black would often play Bc5, f5, Nf6, and 0-0.

Not that that is the only way to go either, the Classical is actually a whole opening complex unto itself so you don't have to go into gambiteer mode if it's not your thing, but the fact that it leads to positions more like the rest of 1. e4 e5 positions should be appealing, because it seems you like the rest of them, and it is only the Lopez positions you know of which you don't like.

That is usually always the case in the black side of the ruy lopez. White can almost at any point play d3. It's white's safety button if you will. I always play the exchange as white and against the crazy scheilmann I play d3. It can also be used later on against a lot of black lines like Archangel and stuff. It is completly fine for white as well, Capablanca and Fischer have both played it.