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Game of the Week #700: Abdusattorov vs Mishra

12/4/2025 – Nodirbek Abdusattorov recently went through a rough phase, dropping in the world rankings from #4 to #17, but right now at the London Chess Classic he is celebrating a major comeback. In the first round Jones forced a draw with White right in the opening, but after that Abdusattorov scored six wins in a row, all against strong grandmasters. Our Game of the Week is his second round win against Mishra, in an extremely theoretical battle in the Archangelsk Variation of the Ruy Lopez. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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Game of the Week #699: Esipenko vs Yakubboev

12/2/2025 – The World Cup in Goa has come to an end, and the surprising winner is 19-year old Javokhir Sindarov from Uzbekistan. In the final he beat Wei Yi in a very tense playoff. In our Game of the Week video we will focus on the fight for the third ticket to the Candidates between Esipenko and Yakubboev. The latter had played a very impressive World Cup so far, but after something went wrong in the opening in the first game, the tension quickly increased and Esipenko showed his class. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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Game of the Week #698: Yakkuboev vs Donchenko

11/20/2025 – By now only four players are left at the World Cup and even though it was impossible to predict their names, they are all very strong: Wei Yi, Javokhir Sindarov, Nodirbek Yakubboev and Andrey Esipenko. Three of them will qualify for the Candidates, so the remaining stage of the World Cup will be very tense. Only Yakubboev did not need a playoff in the quarterfinales, since he won a very instructive and impressive game with White against Donchenko, which is our Game of the Week. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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Game of the Week #697: Gukesh vs Svane

11/13/2025 – Only very strong players are left at this stage of the World Cup. Germany is doing great with still four top grandmasters at the final 32: Vincent Keymer, Matthias Bluebaum, Alexander Donchenko and Frederik Svane. The latter most impressively beat World Champion Gukesh, from India, in India, with the black pieces in the classical part of their mini match, which of course needs to be our Game of the Week. It is striking how Frederik sticks to his own active style against everyone. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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Game of the Week #696: Grooten vs Pijpers

11/6/2025 – The World Cup is quickly gaining momentum and most likely next week we will have a rich choice of games, but for this week we selected a game from the Dutch League. 15-year-old Tommy Grooten, who is the son of IM Herman Grooten and FM Petra Schuurman, is playing his first season in the highest league for Apeldoorn. Our Game of the Week is his first win against a grandmaster (Arthur Pijpers) and was conceptually very interesting, with a pretty finish. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Game of the Week #695: Cheng vs Giri, European Club Cup 2025

11/3/2025 – The European Club Cup is always an interesting event, featuring all levels running from strong amateurs to absolute elite players. Both Germany's Vincent Keymer and Dutch Anish Giri used the opportunity to further rise in the world rankings, currently being 4th and 5th respectively. Giri started playing more aggressively recently, playing great Najdorf games against 1.e4. In our Game of the Week against Bobby Cheng he showed how you can attack with Black against the Catalan. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Game of the Week #694: Niemann vs Caruana, US Championship 2025

10/25/2025 – There is a lot of top level chess going on this week, including the US championship and the European Club Cup, but everything was overshadowed by the shocking death of Daniel Naroditsky at the age of 29. His story and his legacy should be told and shared by the people who knew him best, that's why this video is on another topic. At this point Caruana is leading the US championship and he is playing very creative and dynamic chess. We will discuss his impressive win against Niemann. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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Game of the Week #693: Van Wely - Kovalenko, European Team Championship 2025

10/15/2025 – The European Team Championship was exciting from start to finish and in the end the well deserved winner was Ukraine. Their top scorer Igor Kovalenko has a very impressive life story, having served at the front lines of the war for 2.5 years and now returning to top level chess. Our Game of the Week is his positional masterpiece from the important seventh round encounter against the Netherlands, in which he outplayed Loek van Wely with a very creative manoeuvre. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Game of the Week #692: Kourkoulos vs Schitco, European Team Championship 2025

10/9/2025 – The European Team Championship has started and we are spoiled every day with exciting matches between countries. Germany is number one seed with their dream team Vincent Keymer/Rasmus Svane/Matthias Bluebaum/Dmitrij Kollars/Frederik Svane, but the team of coach Jan Gustafsson is having a bumpy start in the tournament. Our Game of the Week is the masterpiece Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (Greece) created against Ivan Schitco (Moldova) in the first round. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Game of the Week #691: Rapport - Huschenbeth, Bundesliga 2025

10/2/2025 – The German Bundesliga season has started last weekend and as usual many world class players take part. These days there are several teams with incredibly strong line-ups, but Baden-Baden has had one for decades. For instance, Vincent Keymer is currently number 10 in the world and number 7 at Baden-Baden. Our Game of the Week is the instructive positional win by Richard Rapport with White against German top grandmaster Niclas Huschenbeth. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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Game of the Week #690: Oro - Macias Pino, Leyendas Prodigios 2025

9/29/2025 – Two weeks ago we saw how 14-year old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus from Turkey stole the show in the first part of the Grand Swiss. This week it is 11-year old Faustino Oro from Argentina who scored his first GM norm with two (!) rounds to go, while passing the 2500 mark in the progress. He now has five months to break the world record for youngest grandmaster ever. While most of his games were tough fights, our Game of the Week is Oro's flashy win from the fourth round against Diego Macias Pino. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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Game of the Week #689: A. Erigaisi - M. Bluebaum, Grand Swiss 2025

9/19/2025 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at a game by Matthias Blübaum, who won the European Individual Championship in 2022 and 2025, and recently qualified for the 2026 Candidates Tournament by finishing second at the 2025 Grand Swiss in Samarkand. One of the key moments was his win with Black against Arjun Erigaisi. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
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