Play the Ruy Lopez!
My small opening repertoire has been pretty much unchanged for the best part of twenty years. (Blimey - when I started out on that sentence I hadn't realised just how long it was. To be fair I hardly played for ten of those years, but still). I've been trying to introduce some new lines, but it's not so easy. Among the problems is that I only play about 20-25 games a year. So, for example, I bought Andrew Greet's Play the Ruy Lopez at some point in early 2008 - shortly after this game , come to think of it. Since then, I reckon it has taken me 17 tries with 1. e4 to get 1. ... e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 in reply. (I've had three French, three Sicilian, three Caro-Kann, three Alekhine, three centre-counter, and one Petroff in the meantime). Part of me thinks that this is rather unlucky, but actually it was much the same story in the previous year or two - which I perhaps should have checked before buying the book! I suppose I ought to get into online blitz, which should gi...