Fwiw this is normal in chess nowadays. There was some brief era in chess where everybody was just going down the most critical lines and assuming they could out

Fwiw this is normal in chess nowadays. There was some brief era in chess where everybody was just going down the most critical lines and assuming they could outprepare their opponents, or outplay them if that didn't work out. Kasparov and Fischer are the typical examples of this style. But computers have made this less practical in modern times simply because it's so easy to lose in these sort of positions to the endless number of comp-prepped novelties which may be both objectively mediocre, but also nary impossible to play against without preparation against a prepared opponent. So a lot of preparation now a days is about getting positions that may not be the most critical test of an opening, but that lead to interesting positions and where the first player to spring a novelty isn't going to just steamroll the other guy. So in this brave new world you see things like the Berlin Defense becoming hugely popular while the Najdorf has substantially declined in popularity.