My Caro-Kann Frustration

I have been playing quite a few games a black and playing the Caro-Kann opening.  I would say I am still in the learning phase, but wow, am I frustrated.  It appears that the almost standard reply by White is e5 after black’s d5.  It is known as the Caro-Kann Advanced version.  The thing that’s gotten me the most frustrated is that my references are old and the line I had is woefully inadequate.  I have since corrected that problem.  But it appears that the Advanced version is kind of backwards to the other Caro lines.  Plus the Advanced Variation has Black moving the c pawn twice in 5 moves.  It just bothers me that the Caro takes two moves to get the c pawn to c5.

I am tempted to switch to the French defence, but being an ultra closed defence I don’t want that one.  Another bother about the Caro-Kann is that, according to Ruben Fine, the Caro-Kann is an attempt to have the French defence without the bad Queen Bishop.  Ok. So now that you free the Queen Bishop, what happens?  Most of the time you just exchange it with White’s Bishop.  That doesn’t sound like such a freeing idea.  I realize that exchanges in material are ideal for a closed defence, but that doesn’t sound like real compensation for the frustration.

So for now, the Caro-Kann is on my back shelf.  I am now studying the Sicilian.  I plan to roll it out soon.  I will come back to the Caro-Kann, but I need some time.

Mini-rant: I can’t stand all the chess-culture snobbery about learning openings.  It is like there is some sort of Opening Police that will come and get you if you play or try to learn an opening that somone thinks you are not skilled enough to try.  If that were the case, nobody would ever learn chess.