How to play against the Ruy Lopez Berlin defence?

Hello everybody!

I decided to play the ruy lopez as white against 1..e5. But I have problem with the Berlin variation.

Black's idea is to play Nxe4 and open up the game as I know. But I want a more strategic position if I play the Ruy lopez. But if I play Nc3 or d3 then I can't play the usual plan c3-d4 at some point. Is the open Ruy lopez good for white? If yes, how?

You can play d3 and play for d4 later if you want to avoid the open lines.

No worries, Garry Kasparov had the same problem.

The Berlin Defense puts a premium on plans rather than individual moves. The player with the better plans will win. Black's play is extremely challenging. 

Try this as white. Just worry about the first 10 moves or so, not the entire game. I provided the entire game to give you some context.

[Edit: ViktorHNielsen posted the same line while I was writing mine! Seems that like minds think alike!]

Addendum: Black has at least 9 different playable options on move 9. Again, plans are more important than individual moves in this opening.

Hmm, interesting, Black has two bishops but doubled pawns. Maybe a good variation. By the way, what would happen if black would play 5. exd4 instead of the Nd6? I mean is there a forcing line where white can have a better position?

Re1 the knight is pinned. Although it can't actually be won, you'll get a good position.

5...exd4 is the main line for players rated under 2100, and it's almost never seen in games between grandmasters. 

There's a fairly forcing line that really does look pretty scary though. It's been repeated in several games. It may be worth looking at to see where you can find improvements. In order to get better at chess, you really have to do your own work at some point, but here's a game to get you started:

Not many openings are more strategic than the berlin defence. There are a lot of positional factors to take into acount.

The black bishop pair the white space advantage. The black king postion (can be good or bad) the crippled queens side majority.Whites kingside majority all of these are strategic themes

^ Ah, it's called the Riga variation iirc

If you don't like all these complication, after Nxe4 you can simply play Re1 and get your pawn back with some initiative. It's a less ambitious line but perfectly ok.

Also, like Scottrf said, you can play d3 and wait a bit before pushing d4. When I first started with the Ruy I never wanted to play d3, like it was an admission of defeat, but then I learned that this slower approach is really good: it is not an inferior version of the Ruy. You take your time, maneuvering your Q-kight in place before taking action in the centre.

Fun fact: in about 1 year that I play the Ruy Lopez, I have NEVER seen the Berlin endgame. I always play e4, I always play the Ruy, I always castle after Nf6. Never found somebody who knew the lines and was willing to get into them.

Guess we never played yet. I play the Berlin defence against spanish almost exclusively nowadays. The positions are based on positional knowledge and not on forced lines with complex positions. I tend to drop pieces in those lines ;) Also I tend to be fairly good with the bishop pair.

Pretty much no matter what white chooses black will have his hown positional strengths to play with and what follows is a battle where the best positional player has the best chances.

d3/Nd2 certainly is an enterprising way to avoid the berlin endgame and i do advice to play it against berlin players but dont expect and easy advantage for white (just like the d3 variations are not very scary versus the morphy defence)

Not an advantage, Black has the bishop pair. Overall the game should be equal.

An idea to try vs Berlin Defense is 4. Bxc6.

This way you can rip black's e pawn off board when they do the same to you, leaving equal material (though black still has the bishop pair), and a chance to play for the initiative after 4... dxc6. 5 O-O Nxe4 6. Nxe5, and 7. Re1

d3 seems like the best move to me.

yeah theory says so, my idea is that u bring about a look similar to the exchange variation, and it's just a different look to throw @ people

Umm, 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. d3 Bd6 6. Nbd2 Be6 7. b3 Nd7 has almost nothing in common with the exchange variation. White does not have the kingside majority. Neither does 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 Nf6 7. Nxe5 Be7 8. Qe2 Be6. 6. Nxe5 Be7 7. Re1 transposes.

After some studying I found that while Bxc7 itself isn't a better move, the sequence it results in is extremely lethal. 7. Re1 pins the knight, as if the knight moves, white can answer with Nc6 which is a discovery check that will lose black his queen. thus black has to find some way to defend his knight, perhaps with f5, or using f6 to kick white's knight, but the black knight is still pinned and vulnerable to d2-d3, losing material for black pretty much no matter what, and at best trading the knights.

Your plan has a slight flaw. After 6. Nxe5 it is blacks move and not white's and he will play Bc5 stopping Re1 (because of Bxf2). With the bishop pair and no white pawn majority on the kingside in my opinion black is better in your line

Best way to play against it is the mainline.
How? would take me 3 pages to give a basic overview.
John Cox has an excellent book on the Berlin. Probably the best book i've read and its the reason I started playing it as black. Though it is just as helpful from the white side if you can find it somewhere.

I play 2 lines against the Berlin in OTB, depending on my mood lol.

4.d3 is a strong line.

I dont agree with the a4 line though, other than hoping blacks stumbles into the tricky nd6? line i dont think it has much value, i think cox recommends nbd4, but when faced with it the first few time i played d6 which is also equalising quite easy.