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Game of the Week #705: Both players could have won

1/9/2026 – We are starting 2026 with a wildly romantic game between Yair Parkhov and Lazaro Bruzon Batista from the Pan-American Intercollegiate Championship. Often our Game of the Week is a model game by one side, but this game both players could have won. The Sicilian Najdorf with the sharp old main line 6.Bg5 can easily get completely out of the control. There are many possible piece sacrifices and soon the all the variations become too difficult to calculate, even for grandmasters. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Game of the Week #704: van Foreest vs Rodshtein

12/31/2025 – This month we looked at the amazing performances of the young super talents Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (14) and Faustino Oro (12). We also paid attention to the biggest rating jumps at 2700 level: Nodirbek Abdusattorov returned to the absolute top and Nihal Sarin firmly went over 2700. We'd like to finish the year with another popular player returning to the world elite: Jorden van Foreest did well in the Czech league, his game against Rodshtein was played in his trademark original style. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Game of the Week #703: Sarin vs Svane

12/24/2025 – In the past few weeks the Global Chess League was being played, but that is rapid and we prefer classical chess. So for this week's Game of the Week we decided to return to early December, when Nihal Sarin managed to win the President Cup in Uzbekistan with 7 out of 9, two full points ahead of the rest of the field. In the first round Nihal, who is now on 2716 thanks to his powerful performance, won an impressive and instructive positional game against Frederik Svane. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.

Game of the Week #702: Oro vs Schnaider

12/23/2025 – Last week we saw 14-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus beating MVL in a match and this week the big news is the second GM norm of 12-year-old Faustino Oro. His first round game against 14-year-old Ilan Schnaider was a very fascinating encounter in the Sicilian Najdorf and therefore our Game of the Week. This new generation of top players seems to have a different take on the game and it's very interesting to investigate how that differs from a more classical approach. | 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 #701: Erdogmus vs MVL

12/16/2025 – The Clash of Generations II featured a six game match between 34-year-old former number two of the world Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and 14-year old super talent Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus. The result was amazing: Erdogmus hardly experienced any problems at all, comfortably drew five of the games and even won one! This remarkable fifth game of the match is our Game of the Week, it saw the suprising use of the Ruy Lopez exchange variation and turned into a positional masterpiece. | 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 #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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