It is a very solid way to play against the Ruy, often leading to the famous "Berlin Wall" endgame in which black has two bishops but also a crippled pawn majority and a king that cannot castle. It is kind of like an improved Ruy Lopez exchange variation for white, but it is still very hard for him to get an edge, just like Kasparov couldn't find a way to get the edge against Kramnik when he played it in their WC match.
What is the Berlin Opening?
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Besides the Berlin Defense to the Ruy Lopez there is:
1 e4 e5 2 f4 ef 3 Nf3 g5 4 h4 g4 5 Ne5 Nf6, the Berlin Defense to the Kieseritzky variation of the King's Gambit.
and
1 e4 e5 2 Nc3 Nf6, the Berlin Defense to the Vienna Game
The drawish reputation of the Berlin Wall is exagerated, a draw is a lot more likely continuation in pretty much all the QGD variation, especially so if black goes in for the Lasker variation instead of the today more usuall Tartakower variation.
The variation mentioned in that article must have been that Berlin wall ending used with succes by Kramnik in his WCH match against Kasparov.
Altough the two are superficially similar in reality the Berlin defence leads to quite different type of play compared to the exchange variation of Ruy Lopez imo.
In the excahnge variation there are many systems where black can generate active counterplay with the pair of bishops and fight for the win. In the Berlin Wall black needs to be mostly concerned by defence. After all, the fact that he has lost his castling rights makes it much more difficult to coordinate pieces for an attack. On the other hand, the fact that pawn is on e5 makes white's kingside majority somewhat less flexible and since white has exchanged his lightsquared bishop black might be able to build some type of blockade on the light squares.
Aug 27, 2010
0
#6
Kasparov finally managed to beat Kramnik from the white side of the Berlin the next year. Black in general scored pretty badly with the Berlin in the World Championships back in its heyday.
it was first invented by arthur bisguiser vs bobby fischer in a game where fischer won as white over 50 years before krammnik used it
paulgottlieb wrote:
The Berlin variation of the Ruy Lopez may have its attractions at the Super GM level, where a draw with Black is valuable, but I fail to see why any of us would want to play it. 40 moves of defending a slightly inferior ending isn't my idea of a good time
Well, at club level it is arguably one of the best ways to play for a win against the Ruy as black. You go straight into an endgame and avoid the typical "spanish torture" that occurs in the 30+ move deep theory of the closed variations, and also you don't have to be booked to the teeth only to get a drawish position anyway like you do in the Marshall attack.
Of couse it has theory that you need to know, but it is generally less forcing and more about understanding the positions than many other variations of the Ruy. The nice thing about it is that most of the sidelines against it are harmless, even less so than the normal Ruy sidelines after 3...a6, and even better the exchange variation is bad against it because 3...Nf6 is much more useful than 3...a6 in that position. Of course if white knows what he is doing you might suffer for the first half of the game, only to exploit the bishop pair advantage later, but I think white will be less prepared against it than he is against 3...a6. I play the white side of this opening and usually after 11 moves or so I am out of book, whereas after 3...a6 I know a few lines past 20 moves.
If I was a really good endgame player I would probably play this as black. For now, I like to keep queens on because I like having a middle game.
I have to say, as a player who plays the Berlin, there are many attractions apart from the draw. IT is not very theoretical but white much now theory for all of blacks lines on move 9, h6 Ne7 Be7 and Bd7, if he does not want to stand worse. It is also useful against stronger players who want to win, and many weaker players who are poor at endgames.
Furthermore, it can be very frustating and give a mental edge.
eaglex wrote:
it was first invented by arthur bisguiser vs bobby fischer in a game where fischer won as white over 50 years before krammnik used it
Do you actually believe this, or did you just make it up?
Either way, this is bull, and the history of the Berlin Wall is alot older than 50 years. I don't know who used it first, but I'm pretty sure that Tarrasch and/or Lasker has some games with the Berlin in the early 1900.
Tricklev wrote:
eaglex wrote:
it was first invented by arthur bisguiser vs bobby fischer in a game where fischer won as white over 50 years before krammnik used it
Do you actually believe this, or did you just make it up?
Either way, this is bull, and the history of the Berlin Wall is alot older than 50 years. I don't know who used it first, but I'm pretty sure that Tarrasch and/or Lasker has some games with the Berlin in the early 1900.
Lasker used to play the Berlin defence with 5... Be7 not the Berlin Wall. However, it's true that Berlin Wall has been played much earlier than 50 years ago - altough I doubt it wasn't called Berlin Wall back then
. Here is the first game I could track but it's quite possible there have been earlier ones not present in my databases.
What is the Berlin Opening? I recently read in an article here that the Berlin Opening was used with such success against e4 that world championship games turned to d4 instead. I can't find this opening in the game explorer. Anyone care to elaborate for me? Thanks.