Lessons From Kenilworth IV

THE following well-known position from the Berlin Wall variation of the Spanish occurred in my round-five game.

There are 7,386 examples of this position in ChessBase's 2024 Mega database

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In the early days of the variation in the 1880s and early 1890s, White usually continued with 9.Nc3, and occasionally 9.Bg5+.

Emanuel Lasker, in a consultation game against three amateurs in 1896, introduced 9.Rd1+!?, which also occurred in my game.

I was somewhat surprised by Rd1 as I knew the move has been criticised on the ground that the d1 square should be reserved for the queen's rook, with the king's rook used to either enable the push f4 or to support the e pawn.

However Vladimir Kramnik's successful use of the Berlin Wall in his world championship match against Garry Kasparov apparently caused a rethink.

In that match Kramnik liked to play ...Bd7 and ...Kc8, with the king ideally later manoeuvring via b7 to c6.

So whites revived 9.Rd1+!?, more-or-less forcing 9...Ke8 as 9...Bd7 seems well-answered by 10.Ng5.

9.Rd1+!? is a favourite of Gata Kamsky, and has been played by, among others, Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen.

Not only that, but the move is the top choice of Komodo14.1 (Stockfish16 prefers the commoner 9.Nc3).

LESSON: it is easy to nod one's head in agreement at the 'illogicality' of a move such as 9.Rd1+!? But as usual the real strength of a move depends not on general considerations, but on detailed analysis.