Lessons From Newcastle VI

IN round six of the Northumbria Challengers (U2000 Fide) I had black against a player rated 2010 ECF/1937 Fide.

The full game can be seen at N6 but here I want to concentrate on an instructive moment in the opening, which was a Berlin Defence to the Spanish.

It began 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Nd6 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.dxe5 Nf5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8.

The main tabiya of the Berlin Wall

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The main continuation in ChessBase's 2022 Mega database is 9.Nc3, while Stockfish15 likes 9.h3 and Komodo13.02 prefers 9.Rd1+.

The game saw 9.Bg5+!?, which at first glance may seem a good move - after all White has developed a minor piece with tempo.
In addition, after 9...Ke8 - the main reply in Mega22 - the black king can no longer go the queenside, at least in the short and medium term.

This can be argued as an achievement for White in that there are important lines in the Berlin Wall in which Black develops the light-square bishop, plays ...Kc8 and later, after playing ...b6 and ...c5, redeploys the king via b7 to the active square c6.

So far, so promising, but the position is rather more complicated than this makes it seem.

The game continued 10.Rd1 Be6, and now came 11.b3, the point being to meet 11...h6 with 12.Bc1.

Position after 12.Bc1

Now compare this with the line 9.Rd1+ Ke8 10.b3.

Position after 10.b3

White's set-up in the two diagrams is exactly the same, but Black in the game position has two extra tempi: ...Be6 and ...h6.

The former is obviously a useful developing move, while the latter is a defensive move often played by Black in the Berlin Wall to control g5.

None of this is fatal for White's chances, but it does help show why 9.Bg5+ appears 157 times in Mega22 while 9.Rd1+ occurs 804 times.

The latter has been tried by Carlsen, Caruana, Kamsky and many other top players, while the highest rated player to try 9.Bg5+ is a 2382, although admittedly it was reasonably popular with quite strong players in the pre-elo era.