What are the best books for Ruy Lopez as white?

@SchachTalent2 said in #11:
> The DVD by Fabiano Caruana: ,,Navigating the Ruy Lopez" is awesome when you` re interested in a well rounded overview 😉.

His book seems to be essentially a hard copy of the DVD. I looked at the preview pages of the book and the pages I saw were excellent.

Fabiano Caruana soll bald ein Buch zu Spanisch rausbringen. Hätte auch selber großes Interesse mir das zu holen

Not a helpful comment I guess but Ruy is likely the #1 most overrated opening in chess (for the white side at least) IMO

@GrandLapin said in #13:
> Not a helpful comment I guess but Ruy is likely the #1 most overrated opening in chess (for the white side at least) IMO
why do you think so?

@Aqua_sama Black generally has more lines to steer into. Extremely hard to gain an advantage theoretically, and the position is often a slow grind

@GrandLapin said in #13:
> Not a helpful comment I guess but Ruy is likely the #1 most overrated opening in chess (for the white side at least) IMO
In 1. e4 openings the ruy Lopez and Italian are the openings with the most historical background and a large scale of different positions (concerning pawn structures, piece play, dynamic vs. static imbalances).
--> If one is interested in getting to know an interesting opening with the possibility of a lifetime repertoire, go for it!

Andrew Greet has a very comprehensive book on the Lopez. It was recommended to me.

I've been too lazy to learn the Ruy but it does have several big points in favour of it:

1. It will always be a good opening, though you might need to replace some lines over time but there are lots of ways to vary White setup. So, once you've learned and understood it you can keep playing it for the rest of your life.

2. There are so many different ways for Black to reply that the opening is basically a course in strategy - you will encounter every kind of structure from gambits with ...f5 to very closed Czech Benoni kind of positions.

3. True it doesn't give much of an edge for White - no opening does anymore, unless Black plays unsoundly. But basically the point of the Ruy is to keep a slightly more comfortable position and negotiate small improvements over and over until Black cracks. There are so many thematic positional ideas for White: Monster-bishop, a-file infiltration, centre domination, etc etc.

4. Because of 2 & 3 you will be able to learn and play other openings much faster than if starting from scratch. Most of the current craze for the Italian Game is basically because it gives a different way of playing the Spanish.