If You Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em: Playing Openings You Hate

"Oh look, another London system..." your mutter to yourself, the joy already fading from your life.  "That's the third one today."  You contemplate playing the Englund Gambit, 1...e5, just to deny these no-life Londoners their favourite set-up.  Eventually you reach that familiar middlegame, where White has a grip on e5, a solid position with no weaknesses and you, as Black, have to work hard to make something out of it.  Worse, it always seems any mistake you make is immediately game-ending, whereas White never loses early.  It's not fair.  What a stupid opening... and I'm not just saying that because I have a losing record against it!

I should be thankful it's only 24 games, I guess...

This can apply to any opening.  As a kid, I hated playing against the Qxd5 Scandi.  It seemed like Black got a super-solid position with no risk.  I couldn't take advantage of the early Queen development, and my attacking moves never went anywhere.  Black remained solid and then slowly took over.  It didn't seem fair ... so I did the only sensible thing: I started playing the Qxd5 Scandi.  Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

This was an excellent decision.  Not because the Scandi is a particularly good opening.  No, it's for the exact opposite reason: I didn't realize the downsides of the opening until I was on the other side.  Once I was faced with these problems, it opened my eyes.  The grass isn't always greener on the other side, and this knowledge empowered my White game.  The Qxd5 Scandi is now one of my better performing openings ... as White.

Today I want to go into this simple idea in a little more detail. It is an excellent training tool, and it may be the best way to truly learn and understand different structures in chess.  After all, nothing beats practical experience.

Briefly, My Story

I hated a lot of openings growing up.  This is probably a misunderstanding on my part, blaming my poor results on the openings rather than my own skill, but nonetheless, I switched openings constantly.  I did this for a number of reasons, but a big one was because of my poor results against it.  Here's a non-exhaustive list:

• Open Spanish: I had no idea how White was supposed to get any play ... and then I realized Black doesn't have easy play, either, and d4 and c5 are juicy squares for a White Knight
• The Caro: Super solid, I never got my attacks going ... and then I realized Black can get squeezed and the opening is really boring.
• The ...e6 and ...Bb4 Sicilians: Black always got early pressure and frequently won the e4-pawn ... and then I realized that White's long-term initiative on the dark-squares after ...Bxc3 was very strong.
• The French: It always leads to stupid blocked positions where you can't do anything ... and nothing changed as Black, except I had even less space.  I actually learned nothing from my French days and thus stuck with the Exchange + c4 variations, just to avoid the blockedness.

I could go on, but I want to use the Qxd5 Scandi as a case-study.  From what I can tell, my White record against it was excellent: of my recorded games, I have 12 games, 9 wins and 3 losses.  So I didn't face it frequently, and when I did I scored 75%.  How could I hate these results?

I think it was because I have eight additional games, not included in the above, against a much weaker player.  He played the Qxd5 Scandi exclusively, and considering the large skill gap, it always seemed to take effort to beat him, certainly compared to playing other openings. That didn't seem right, and I figured the opening was the main culprit.

This subjective feeling, therefore, and not any objective reality, fueled my decision.  I adopted the Qxd5 Scandi, and of all the openings I've "hate played", it's the one I've stuck with the longest and tried the hardest to make work.

Why I Liked the Qxd5 Scandi

It's probably the same reason as everyone who plays it: you get the same structure in 98% of your games.  Unlike the Caro-Kann, White has no real way to avoid it (2.Nc3 and 2.e5 are both bad moves). Basically, if White plays 1.e4, then I am guaranteed to get the game I want, one that White probably doesn't want.

I also didn't need theory.  I never worried about theory as a kid regardless, but here it was even less relevant.  I knew which moves I did not like seeing as White, so I would just play those as Black. Further, Black has extremely natural development: Knights to f6 and d7, Bishops to f5 and b4/e7, Rooks to the central files, Queen retreats to c7.  Play that on auto-pilot and get a good game.

In the end, I had a really solid position that was hard to breakdown.  That's great ... but I soon discovered this wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

What I Learned Through Playing the Qxd5 Scandi

Easy Opening, Hard Middlegame

Basically, against most people, I could easily complete my development ... but then what? Sure, I had a solid position, but so did White.  What was I going to do?  Finding an active plan was far from obvious.  In this game, for example, the computer says I am equal to slightly better ... but I have no idea what I am doing.

If I play ...c5 or ...e5, I open up the center for White's heavy pieces.  If I don't, what do I do?  Maybe I re-route my Knight to sit on d5.  Great ... what do I do then?  Should I be trading pieces or keeping them on?  Which pieces?  How to make progress?  None of this seemed obvious, and even today, as a much stronger player, the answers are far from clear cut.

White Still Determines the Game

My Black wins came fastest and easiest when White played aggressively: maybe jumping in with a fast Ne5 and g4, or castling Queenside and throwing a pawn storm.  This created obvious imbalances and were fairly intuitive to play.  Other times, though, White simply played normal, boring development and reached a normal, boring middlegame, like this:

White did absolutely nothing special here (some combination of Nf3, Nc3, Bf4, Bd3 to exchange my ...Bf5 and then 0-0).  White has a completely normal position, and Black does not have any of that intuitive play or imbalance to play with.  Fun fact: I was rated 400 points higher and lost this game, mostly through a blunder, but that stemmed from this boring and slightly worse position.

White is Under No Pressure

This follows from the above.  White can simply play normal development moves, reach a normal position and then play chess. Black is putting no pressure on him.  The number of early Black wins, both in my practice and in the master's database, is extremely small.  If White plays normal moves, it's hard to blunder.  Since blunders decide the vast majority of amateur chess, it feels like a handicap to play an opening that gives your opponent free reign.

White's Lead in Time Can Count

In contrast, Black is under pressure, even if it doesn't feel like it.  Moving the Queen around early is a loss of time. This is the game that really opened my eyes to the Scandi's weaknesses.  This looks like a completely normal position:

And it still looks fairly normal three moves later:

White has developed his Rook, I've developed my Bishop.  Still normal.  If anything, I should be happy, because his Knight is on the edge of the board and f3 should be a weakening move.  I was completely content and didn't have a care in the world... and then White hit me with 12.Nd5!!

It's a discovery on my Queen and initiates action in the center.  Not good.  After my Queen retreats he exchanges my favourite Bishop with Nxe7.  Not ideal, but I'm still in the game... until he plays 14.Nf5!

Oh crap.  I can't take the Knight because of the pin.  g7 is hanging.  If I don't defend it I lose a pawn and can't castle... but the only way to defend it is ...Qf8, which also prevents me from castling.  I played it because I didn't have a choice, but I was clearly on the knife's edge.  After 15.Bf4, he was also threatening an invasion on d6.

We soon reached this position: White is going to play c4 and d5, open the center and then checkmate me.  I tried desperately for some counterplay, but it didn't work.  I resigned just a few moves later.

As I've grown as a player, this time element has taken greater prominence.  Certainly when I was younger I had much less appreciation for time and mobility.  I mean, I knew it was a good thing, but I didn't know how to exploit it.  Games like this show exactly how Black can get into trouble.

Just think, if I never played this opening, I would never play this game and never receive this masterclass on crushing the Scandi.  I gained a much greater understanding of how to apply pressure on Black's position, and I also learned that if White does nothing, Black might just self-destruct from trying too hard.  These twin realizations have since powered my White results.

Conclusion

It's all to easy to have rose-coloured glasses on when looking at certain openings.  Often we don't appreciate the problems and challenges facing the other side until we take up the gauntlet ourselves.  If we start playing that opening, we basically get a risk-free chess lesson.  Think about it: if we win, great! Winning feels good.  And if we lose, awesome, we learned a new way to attack this opening from the other side.  It's win-win!

You don't necessarily need to play against other people, either.  I have done numerous training games against Stockfish from set positions, seeing how the engine responds to positions that I have difficulty with. Seeing Stockfish effortlessly destroy you isn't that fun ... but seeing Stockfish effortlessly destroy the London System makes it worth it.

Regardless, if you have problems facing a particular opening, try playing it yourself.  You will undoubtedly get a new appreciation for the problems it faces.  Experience is often the best teacher, and this is the best way to get it.