Grenke 2019 : understanding the Berlin with MVL

A very nice and instructive game has been played yesterday April the 22nd at the Grenke Chess Classic between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Arkady Naiditsch. MVL chooses the only classical placement of White's pieces that Kasparov did not try against Kramnik in the 2000 WCh. Naiditsch answers with his own favorite configuration.
It seems that the two players are not following the same theory, as is typical of big clashes of specialists : each is following the theory he has written himself, with slightly different assessments. Without any big surprise, it seems MVL wins the opening contest but fails to convert as Naiditsch finds the cold-blooded defence among the various choices.
White finds the narrow path to a draw after his sacrifice. The stream of forced moves ends up with a (queenless) perpetual check a rook down !

I added the game as chapter 6 of my study on the Berlin Spanish. The five earlier chapters are not necessary to understand the game, but they give a (modern) historical introduction to the Berlin Gospel according to the Archangel Vladimir.

I agree very interesting

A video in french about that game was uploaded today. You might see some interesting variations for those who want to try hard ^^

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f_dfCt7lBM&list=PLNWIodzrp0vlv1MK6Vnrrp2GeVJwXFfoz&index=12&t=0s

Thank you for quoting the video. As I'm French-speaking, I could compare it with my own analysis (club-level amateur with Komodo 8 and Stockfish on Lichess).

1) They don't elucidate the opening choices, as professional players like to keep their secrets. The big exception to this observation are "recap videos" by Peter Svidler when he is commenting, not playing. I'm sure GM Cornette has a lot more to say about moves 12-16 !

2) All the top engines agree about the line 24.Re3 Nd7 25.Rg3 Rh7 26.Rgd3 Nb6 27.Bc1. Once you see it, its justification is indeed transparent. It is a critical moment of the game where all analysts will be punching through a door that has been opened by a computer.

3) The most helpful part of the video is around 20', when they discuss why the endgame resulting from 30.Rd8 (analysis on Black's 26th move) is really winning for White. They give some instructive lines that are totally different from Stockfish's or Komodo's first choices.

4) The analysis of 27.Rd5 is again all the engines's line. This game is clearly a case where two critical moments are well identified by computers without the assessment of a professional player. Honestly, 24.Re3 and 27.Rd5 did take very little time compared with the research on the opening. I spent more time on 35...Rad8, a moment that is eluded quickly by GM Cornette but that is critical for the assessment of 35.f5.

5) I really like the analysis after 30...Bf8. It's a bit more anecdotal than on the 26th move, but it still shows some instructive endgame tactics.

41 minutes is rather long for a video on a single game. Unlike many videos on chess games (again Svidler's and King's videos are exceptionally good in this respect), this one shows some original analysis. If I may draw a small lesson from the comparison with computer-assisted analysis, the major value added by the participation of a GM is the endgame wisdom.

Understanding and Berlin defence in one phrase sounds like an oxymoron.
I presume nobody understands it.
Kasparov tried in vain to refute it when confronted with him in his match.
Kramnik afterwards called his own choice self inflicted torture on himself.