I am afraid I must disagree with those who seem to be suggesting that the Berlin is an "inferior" variation of the Ruy Lopez. True, it is probably not a refutation of the Ruy Lopez, and true White MAY be able to keep an edge in the Berlin endgame with accurate play, but this is perhaps true of any defense to 1.e4. The fact that Khalifman spends 44 (!) pages trying to prove an edge (sometimes slight) in the Berlin Endgame is, of itself, an indication of the soundness of Black's position. And Black continues to go into the Berlin Endgame at the highest levels, and not without success....
Besides remaining theoretically acceptable, the Berlin also has a practical, psychological aspect which should be considered. World class players aside, few players of 1.e4 are really as happy in a possibly += endgame as they are in a possibly += middlegame with attacking chances. Since the theoretical mainline against the Berlin is just such an endgame, Black may often benefit from White's lack of comfort with his position.
My personal experience suggests that at anything below, say, IM level, playing positions like the Berlin Endgame with Black can be very effective. In the late 1980s and early 1990's, I started playing 1...e5 in response to 1.e4 aiming, in particular, for the Breyer variation. After I won a few games in the Black side of the Breyer (wins which had little or nothing to do with the theoretical merits of the Breyer, and more to do with the "snooze value" of the variation), many expert/master strength players in the Los Angeles area started playing the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez against me, apparently with the idea that it was smart to avoid the Breyer. At one point, in a period of a year as Black I faced 12 Exchange Variations in a row without every reaching a Closed Ruy Lopez! After one draw and a lucky win (my opponent missed a forced winning line) against a couple of experts (2000-2199 USCF; at the time I was rated in the high 2200s), I did some fairly serious theoretical work on several different Black lines. In my next 10 games, my score as Black in the Exchange Variation was 9.5 points! What I discovered once I had studied the Black side of the Exchange Variation was this: most 1.e4 players (and admittedly, all of my games were against players rated from about 2000 to 2350 USCF) are not comfortable in such positions and they do not play them well. It was not so much that I was playing the Black side particularly well (during the same period I had a fairly miserable score on the Black side of the King's Indian), as the fact that most of my opponents played the Exhange Variation endgames at a strength at least 100-200 points beneath their rating.
The Berlin Endgame is, of course, similar to the Exchange Variation, with the advanced Pe5 somewhat favoring Black and the Black King being unable to castle somewhat favoring White. As noted in Glenn Snow's post, it is recommended in IM Larry Kaufman's "The Chess Advantage in Black and White" as Black's main defense to 1.e4. Although such a "passive" repertoire choice may be offputting to some people, I personally believe that this is an extremely savvy recommendation by IM Kaufman.
First, you get the "snooze effect" described above, resulting from a lot of rabid, attacking 1.e4 players who find themselves, unhappily, in an endgame, or in a much less aggressive variation of the Closed Ruy after 4.d3. (The 4.0-0, 5.Re
Second, the amount of theoretical work you need to do to prepare this defense (at least for play at the amateur level) is significantly less than the work needed to prepare a mainline Closed or Open Ruy Lopez. At the same time, you do have to prepare Black defenses against non-Ruy Lopez lines, so if you later want to add other Ruy Lopez variations to your Black repertoire, you will have a lot of the work already.
Third, by playing the Berlin at least a certain number of your games will end up in the Berlin Endgame, and I think that you can learn a lot about the endgame by playing a lot of endgames and then analyzing your games later. (At least I know I did.)
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