This is all very interesting.

I am currently looking at the "old/normal" Archangel with ...Bb7

If I can understand the problems there hoping I can understand the advantages of ...Bc5 line

I have it, and while the theory looks stocksolid, it does require you to have a ton of prior knowledge about the Spanish and probably even the Archangel.
It's not a complete repertoire (so you'll need to find a solution vs Exchange etc from elsewhere), and there is very little if anything about "general considerations".
Mostly just moves, and mostly cutting out where he sees equality - which I'm sure is correct, but if you aren't sure how to continue playing, that doesn't help too much.

Certainly ended up being too high-level for me; very hard to follow, and the arising positions are oftentimes nontrivial to play, even if you have some prior experience in the Spanish; the Bc5 DOES make everything feel quite different.

If you do know stuff about the Ruy, have spent your share of time understanding what the Bc5 changes in "normal, untesting" positions compared to the Be7, and are a stronger player than myself (not very difficult, admittedly), I'm certain the theory itself is state of the art, though.
Svidler is extremely thorough and accurate - eg one line he went over later was played just the same in the Carlsen-Karjakin match, and he called it "You might hold this, but you won't have any fun" - which also happened (he instead recommends a different variation).
He is perfectly honest throughout, and clearly states where he couldn't find 100% equality, something that even books on the Ruggeldurb-Dingdong-Countergambit-System frequently refuse to do.

But yeah, it's less his thoughts on the opening, and more his moves in the opening 

So, is this the same line that gets called the Neo-Archangel? As i dont play the Ruy Lopez as black or white, i get quite confused with some of these lines looking similar

I think Gawain Jones, the recent winner of the British has been playing this line (along with a game in the Modern Steinitz!)

I had read about this too, perhaps on Facebook or Chess24 - fully agree with the rename! 

Hi Guys,
I really just wanted to repeat the story Vlad told me to see if there is agreement about renaming this particular line on ChessPublishing (at the moment we just call it 'Archangel', which is actually only the 6...Bb7 line that Malaniuk was playing while serving in the military in Archangelsk).

brabo wrote on 07/01/15 at 18:13:47:


I agree, I personally prefer to play ...Bb7 only when White has played h3, and after I have put my other pieces on good squares.

Hi, Tony!
If you want to play OTB this variation in the future, please take notice of these variations and full correspondence chess games above! The analysis I made on this variation brought me to conclusion that there are two types of positions - one after Bc1-g5 h7-h6 Bg5-h4 g7-g5 Nf3xg5 and the other after 11. Be3 O-O 12. d5 - which are extremely hard to be defended by black. The overall conclusion of the old experts of this Spanish variation is that if white plays c2-c3 (and not d2-d3) and prolong it with d2-d4 pawn advances, the black bishop has to occupy the b7-square. Archangel, New Archangel, Yurtaev or not - all of these variations may lead you by transpositions to one of these positions. Right now, I play a couple of correspondence chess games as white, so I can't prolong the variations that I showed above, but both of these games lead to win for white. What is interesting, after Bg5 h6 Bh4 g5 Nxg5 even the best engines show full equality - 0.00 .. Well, maybe black can save this position, but only if played by the world correspondence chess champion.
I know well the difference between OTB and correspondence chess - I myself played OTB 20 years ago at master level.. But, still..