Is the tide turning for the Berlin?

In terms of opening re-inventions over the last 25 years, the rise of the Berlin Defence to the Ruy Lopez probably runs second only the Kasparov's use of the Evans Gambit in the mid 1990's. And since Kramnik turned it into a solid system for Black, it has been a regular feature of the Super GM events. However I've recently seen a few games at least which shows that White still has a chance to breach the Berlin Wall.
In the current Norway event, Carlsen scores a reasonably direct win over Lev Aronian, after the later went wrong in a Berlin middlegame. Aronian probably underestimated Whites space advantage (with the pawn on d5), and only made it worse by exchanging dark squared bishops. As a result he had very little counterplay, and after being forced to shuffle his pieces, eventually made a fatal blunder.
As a result Carlsen leads the event with 2 wins and a draw, while everyone else has either drawn, or in the case of Caruana and Aronian, lost to Carlsen.


Carlsen,Magnus (2843) - Aronian,Levon (2764) [C67]
6th Norway Chess 2018 Stavanger NOR (3.1), 30.05.2018

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Nxe4 5. Re1 Nd6 6. Nxe5 Be7 7. Bf1 Nxe5 8. Rxe5 O-O 9. d4 Bf6 10. Re1 Nf5 11. d5 Re8 12. Rxe8+ Qxe8 13. Qd3 d6 14. Nd2 Bg5 15. Nf3 Bxc1 16. Rxc1 Bd7 17. Re1 Qd8 18. Qc4 g6 19. h3 Ng7 20. Re3 a5 21. a4 Ne8 22. Qd4 Ng7 23. g4 c6 24. c4 Ne8 25. Qf4 Kg7 26. Rb3 Rb8 27. Ng5 Nf6 28. Rf3 h6 29. Ne4 Nxe4 30. Qxf7+ Kh8 31. Qxg6 1-0