[4] The opening was rarely used in high-level games[5] and received little attention until the Classical World Chess Championship 2000, in which challenger Vladimir Kramnik used it as a drawing weapon against champion Garry Kasparov.

[9] Usually in the Berlin Defence, the players exchange queens early, causing the game to quickly enter an endgame.

[2] Black has the disadvantage of doubled pawns and a king stuck in the centre, but has compensation in the form of the bishop pair.

Qxd8+ Kxd8 (sometimes called the l'Hermet variation), which was played in all four Berlin games of the Classical World Chess Championship 2000.

Similarly to the Semi-Tarrasch Defense, the queens are exchanged off the board early, leading to a position that is difficult for White to win.

[4] Vladimir Kramnik assesses the endgame as better for White, but believes that this advantage is usually insufficient to win and that Black should be able to draw.

[7] Black's alternatives are generally regarded as inferior, such as 4...d6 which is considered too passive, and 4...Bc5 which allows White to play 5.Nxe5 (preparing to respond to 5...Nxe5 with 6.d4) or 5.c3.

In the classical portion of the grand finals of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So used the line to agree to a draw;[14] the game ended in less than 20 minutes, with some bystanders speculating that Nakamura chose to play the quick draw to better prepare for the ongoing Chess.com Rapid Chess Championship.

Ian Nepomniachtchi utilized this line against Nakamura in Round 12 of the Candidates Tournament 2022, forcing a quick draw by repetition.

During the World Blitz Chess Championship 2022, a match between Richárd Rapport with white, and Nakamura with black, ended in a Berlin Draw that took just 36 seconds from first move to the threefold repetition.