Among top grandmasters the Dutch is a rare defense, which is good reason to play it! It has not been studied very deeply by many opponents, and theory, based on a small number of 'reliable' games, must be rather unreliable.
Bent LarsenAll chess masters have on occasion played a magnificent game and then lost it by a stupid mistake, perhaps in time pressure and it may perhaps seem unjust that all their beautiful ideas get no other recognition than a zero on the tournament table.
Bent LarsenIn my opinion the Open variation is absolutely correct - and more interesting than the Closed.
Bent LarsenPlay the open variation of the Ruy is my advice to all ordinary club players, and I recently even wrote a book about it, seen from Black's point of view. Why does everybody try to copy the grandmasters' strange positional maneuvers in the 5. ... B-K2 variation, instead of fighting for the in intiative?
Bent Larsen