italian game or ruy lopez?

for anyone with a lot of experience with both of these openings, which do you find more useful? the only difference in the opening is playing 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 instead of 3. Bb4, so why is ruy lopez considered more theoretical? any advice is appreciated

itialian better i think because it has less lines against it

Spanish has been more useful for me so far. At my level people can't handle it well as black. Whereas in Italian people much more weaker manage to put up an annoying amount of fight, sometimes until the endgame.

Ruy Lopez is an excellent choice at all levels. At high levels, it's objectively the best and, at low levels, a lot of people don't know what to do against it and just play Steinitz Defence or Bird Defence and you end up better.

It's considered more theoretical because there are more variations.

I prefer Italian

Italian up until 2700? Oh my god that would be such a nightmare. 

ruy Lopez oviously if you are a intermidiate

many people treat the italian as a ¨setup based opening¨ and arent very challenging

but with the ruy you have to know a bunch of lines, but most people below 1750 play the old steinitz,bird, or classical. which are all bad

I prefer Italian game, but Ruy Lopez is also really good.

The ideas of the Ruy Lopez are simple.

• You want to defend e4 then capture on c6 and e5.
• Opponent can disallow this with a6-b5. The LSB lands either on b3, (the same diagonal as the Italian without allowing d5 with tempo like in Italian lines), or on d3 where it eyes h7.
• The moves a6 and b5 can often be exploited as they can be overextended and it leaves the c6 knight loose.
• Then you want to play c3-d4, expand in the centre.
• Congregate all the pieces on the kingside with Nbd2-Nf1-Ng3 and attack.

Even if you don't know theory, these plans are just very intuitive and you can get a strong mating attack. If you play Italian and you can't play the Fried Liver Attack then you are playing a similar positional struggle to the Ruy Lopez except it's harder to play c3-d4 because of this d5 move.

Christof Sielecki explains this beautifully.

And Lightsquares has a good videos on this topic.

Yeah but playing only the Italian up until 2700 would be a nightmare. You are basically saying that the Ruy Lopez is exclusive to grandmasters which is total bs.

For the Ruy you need

something for the Marshall

to learn to play the Open

to learn to play the Berlin endgame

to have something for each of Chingorin, Zaitsev, Breyer

To have something for sidelines ( cozio, Schliemann etc etc ).

That's a lot more compared to the Italian. I'd say start with the Italian, which is simpler, and then later migrate to the Ruy ( e.g. you can start playing a Ruy here and there when you know what your opponent plays and have already prepared for it ).

This is a matter of precise knowledge vs intuition. The way you talk about learning openings is that you have to learn exact memorised lines to be able to play an opening. This is a substitute for simply playing well and understanding the opening.

There's no need to complicate it.

In regards to all the variations you mentioned, this can be learned in under an hour: You don't even have to learn the Marshall Attack or the Berlin as you can play anti marshall and anti-Berlin lines.

I arranged this in a under a minute.

Introduction to The Italian Game & Evans Gambit...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-the-italian-game

i this this is mostly bs, 

for the ruy you can play Qe2 after Nf6 to avoid the closed or open

WHICH AVOIDS THE MARSHALL AND ALL THE OTHER LINES

and the berlin endgames can be long and annoying, and theory consuming so playing the anti works well too

but sidelines are still a issue to learn

I prefer paella over pizza 

I vote for neither and choose 3 Nc3. In his first edition of Keep It Simple 1 e4 Sielecki says The  Scotch Four Knights (3 Nc3 Nf6 4 d4) features quick development for White and a very sound pawn structure, and that it is easier to learn and understand than the Italian and Ruy Lopez. 

I realise he went to the Ruy Lopez in his Keep It Simple 1 e4 2.0 and added more explanations to help with the learning and understanding. I've chosen to stay with the Scotch Four Knights. I also like that against the Petroff in his first edition White plays 3 Nc3 anyway again, offering to head into the Scotch Four Knights. Consolidation of amount of repertoire to learn against both 2...Nf6 and 2...Nc6.

Granted, black can vary on move three after 2...Nc6 or 2...Nf6. For instance, 2...Nc6 3 Nc3 Bb4, but now since there is no knight on f6 White has 4 Nd5 gaining either time or the bishop pair. And if after 2...Nf6 3 Nc3 Black once again goes 3...Bb4 but this time there is no knight on c6 so we leap forward with our other knight with 4 Nxe5 and will likely wind up in a reversed Ruy Lopez Berlin variation a tempo up, all of which he covers. 

Actually, if one is to pick the Worrall, they're probably better off with the Italian.

Both are good openings. Personally, I would prefer the Italian.