8/7/2026 – At the Dutch Open in Dieren many interesting games were played, including several GOTW candidates. Especially the seventh round was a bloody affair with decisive results at the first five boards. My old friend Rick Lahaye (2394) played a positional masterpiece against IM Harshavardhan (2508). Without wanting to spoil too much, it's the perfect example of playing with a classical Nimzowitsch blockading knight and its longterm power. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

8/3/2026 – Thomas Beerdsen is in good shape this summer and won the Dutch Open in Dieren. Before that, he played in the Swiss Open in Grächen, and in the penultimate round he played against his girlfriend, Viktoria Radeva. When you know eachother so well, it's not easy to surprise eachother in the opening, and so Thomas ended up taking a considerable amount of risk with the uncommon 1.e4 e6 2.b3, after which soon a unique position appeared.Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

7/31/2026 – The chess summer continues with events all over the place. The DOLE open in Aix-en-Provence, France, features elite players like Nepomniachtchi, Tabatabaei and Maghsoodloo. Nepo already had to accept two draws in the first four rounds, when he was paired with young Norwegian GM Aksel Bu Kvaloy in the fifth round. Both players showed very inspired chess, each of them willing to sacrifice material at various stages of the game. Nepo kept playing very fast, until disaster struck. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

7/29/2026 – There is a lot of chess going on right now. While I'm playing in the first edition of the Amsterdam Chess Festival myself, there are elite events going on in Chennai and Biel. While Firouzja is leading in Chennai (beating Gukesh in the second round), Le Quang Liem is leading in Biel. Our Game of the Week is Martinez Alcantara vs Le Quang Liem, featuring the trendy 6...g5 in the Steinitz Deferred variation of the Ruy Lopez. For now the verdict seems to be: fully playable for Black. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

7/8/2026 – This week at the Dutch Championship, Max Warmerdam surprised his former trainer Loek van Wely with a very nasty piece of homework in the 6.Bg5 Nbd7 variation of the Najdorf. In Dutch chess circles the game Arno Bezemer-Twan Burg, Meesterklasse 2011, is a well-known game from the early 6...Nbd7 days, featuring Velimirovic style attacking play. Max combined knowledge of this important old game with some new move order twists, making Black's job extremely difficult. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

7/3/2026 – Germany's number one Vincent Keymer versus Dutch number two Jorden van Foreest tends to be a very interesting clash of styles and their mutual games are always interesting. Earlier this year Jorden managed to impressively beat Vincent twice, but this week at the Grand Chess Tour Rapid and Blitz in Croatia it was the other way around. Jorden's typical dynamic play was stifled bit by bit and eventually Vincent reached full domination. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/25/2026 – The French league is usually a good source of exciting games and this week we are studying the highly entertaining and very complex game between Dutch number two Jorden van Foreest and the best French player of all time: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The World's former number two is known for this love of the highly theoretical and dynamic Grunfeld, but here he got seriously tested in the very sharp 5.h4 variation. The truely adventurous game ended with a very pretty finish. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/19/2026 – The French league is usually a good source of exciting games and this week we are studying the highly entertaining and very complex game between Dutch number two Jorden van Foreest and the best French player of all time: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The World's former number two is known for this love of the highly theoretical and dynamic Grunfeld, but here he got seriously tested in the very sharp 5.h4 variation. The truely adventurous game ended with a very pretty finish. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/11/2026 – The UzChess Cup is a fantastic event in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The third edition has a fantastic line-up and shows an enormous amount of fighting chess and decisive results. It's classical chess, the time control is normal, and chess fans around the world get what they the hope for. After four rounds, Abdusattorov, Erigaisi and Vokhidov are in the lead. Our Game of the Week is the surprising and entertaining win by Mukhiddin Madaminov against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/5/2026 – Norway Chess is arguably the strangest tournament in many years. Last week we discussed that Magnus Carlsen had already lost two games, but after eight rounds, he in fact already lost four games. This really seems to be caused by the fact that they play without increment before move 40 and with only 10 instead of 30 seconds increment after move 40. Our Game of the Week between Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh was highly spectacular and entertaining. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

6/1/2026 – Magnus Carlsen has started Norway Chess with 0.5 out of 3 and his two losses seem to be a direct result of the unusual time control: increment only starts after move 40. Reasonably well played games are ruined by terrible blunders in time trouble. It's questionable how this makes chess more fun and it's strange to see that all important tournaments are using a different time control. Anyway, the game between Praggnanandhaa and Carlsen was a big adventure with many interesting moments.Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/15/2026 – Last week we saw how Magnus Carlsen lost against Jorden van Foreest, which put him at 2 out of 4 at that point. But then he managed to win his remaining three games, and 5 out of 7 was just enough to share first place with Erigaisi. Eventually, Carlsen won the blitz tiebreak with 2-1, so he did it again. Our Game of the Week is the historical last round encounter between Magnus Carlsen and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, the 14-year-old that may very well be his successor one day. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/7/2026 – The TePe Sigeman tournament is having an amazing line-up. Erigaisi is impressively leading with 4.5 out of 6, ahead of 14-year-old Erdogmus and Carlsen, who are historically meeting in the final round. Abdusattorov is another heavy weight participant and it is cool to see 16-year-old Woodward in action. Zhu leaves a strong impression being the only female in the field and only local hero Grandelius has a tough tournament. Last but not least Van Foreest managed to beat the GOAT for the first time in his career, which is our GOTW. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/6/2026 – Javokhir Sindarov (20) and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (14) were drawing attention in recent weeks, but also very cool is the comeback of chess legend Ding Liren (33) this week. He scored a solid three wins and two draws from five games in the Chinese League. While the Scotch Four Knights is a notoriously drawish opening, Ding played very patiently with Black against the young 2500 player Huang Renjie and showed that eventually winning chances may still arise in the endgame. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

5/4/2026 – The Candidates has delivered a spectacular winner with 20-year-old Javokhir Sindarov, but just as spectacular is the rise of 14-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus. In part 3 of the Clash of Generation matches Erdogmus crushed the legendary Veselin Topalov with 5-1. In fact most games were quite close and tense affairs, but Erdogmus was tactically more accurate, even when he had to navigate through complex positions living from increment only. Our Game of the Week is the second game of the match. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

4/16/2026 – The Candidates is over and eventually turned into a one man show: Javokhir Sindarov did what Veselin Topalov did back in the day: completely dominating the first half of the event by virtually winning everything and then convincingly staying out of trouble in the second half. Our Game of the Week is the sixth (!) win that Sindarov scored, in the tenth round, with the white pieces against Praggnanandhaa. Later on this year Sindarov will be the challenger of Gukesh for the highest title. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

4/7/2026 – The Candidates has started, arguably the most exciting event of the world with so much at stake. Beforehand, there was the usual speculation about who should be considered the favourites. After three rounds, already a lot was clear: both top favourite Fabiano Caruana and dark horse Javokhir Sindarov had a dream start with 2.5 out of 3, while world number 2 Hikaru Nakamura is struggling so far. Our Game of the Week is the truely astonishing fourth round clash between Sindarov and Caruana. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/26/2026 – Last week we honored Jan Timman, who passed away a few weeks ago, by studying his brilliant attacking game against Anatoli Karpov. This week at Chessbase we dedicate our shows to the legendary Viktor Kortchnoi, who would have turned 95. Hans Ree wrote that Viktor told him back in the day that he choose Kortchnoi as the right spelling of his name, since it combines something from several languages. Our Game of the Week is his amazing attacking game against Mijo Udovcic. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.