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.

3/20/2026 – A few weeks ago Jan Timman passed away at the age of 74. In the Netherlands Timman has always been immensely popular, a true icon of chess. His positive nature and adventurous style has inspired many chess players and will continue to do so. At his peak he reached number two in the world rankings, behind Karpov, ahead of the young Kasparov. Today we will look at his fantastic attacking game against Karpov, with whom he had countless interesting encounters. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/16/2026 – The Prague Chess Festival produced such a nice collection of fascinating games that we are returning to this tournament once more. Jorden van Foreest was well on his way to win the tournament, but crashed in the final rounds, leaving Nodirbek Abdusattorov as the convincing winner and the new number four in the world rankings. Today's Game of the Week is the wildly entertaining attacking game David Navara produced after Nodirbek Yakubboev grabbed a poisoned pawn. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

3/4/2026 – Five weeks ago our Game of the Week was Jorden van Foreest with White against Vincent Keymer, from the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, and today our Game of the Week sees the exact same pairing, from the Prag International Chess Festival. The Dutchman is one fire and again managed to win, bringing him very close to the top 10 in the world rankings. One of his strengths is constantly coming up with new ideas in the opening, this time around against the notorious Berlin. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

2/27/2026 – The Prague International Chess Festival has started and both in the Masters and in the Challengers group fantastic games are being played right from the start. In the first two rounds, a remarkable amount of sacrifices were played. It was difficult to select just one Game of the Week, but in the end it was the creative performance by IM Jachym Nemec against GM Jiner Zhu that was most unusual of all. Black lost the opening battle, but then started to find amazing recources. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

2/22/2026 – Ten weeks ago we studied the positional masterpiece that Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus created against MVL with the help of the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez. The other young Turkish star Ediz Gurel also played this opening twice in his match against Jorden van Foreest, making it a real Turkish speciality. The Dutchman was suffering in the 4th matchgame before reaching a draw, but in the 6th game he came better prepared and brilliantly showed where Black's chances are. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

2/20/2026 – The German Bundesliga always provides us with a beautiful collection of top level games. This weekend a very instructive game was played between top grandmaster Anton Korobov and the experienced grandmaster and trainer Felix Levin. A Petrov Defence turned into French Exchange variation and while the queens were quickly exchanged in this symmetrical structure, the game instructively shows that there is always still enough to play for. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.