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Game of the Week #729: Warmerdam vs Van Wely

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.
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Game of the Week #728: Keymer vs Van Foreest

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.

Game of the Week #727: Korobov vs Maghsoodloo

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.

Game of the Week #726: Van Foreest vs Vachier-Lagrave

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.
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Game of the Week #725: Madaminov vs Nepomniachtchi

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.

Game of the Week #724: Praggnanandhaa vs Gukesh

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.
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Game of the Week #723: Praggnanandhaa vs Carlsen

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.

Game of the Week #722: Carlsen vs Erdogmus

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.
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Game of the Week #721: Van Foreest vs Carlsen

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.

Game of the Week #720: Huang vs Ding Liren

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.

Game of the Week #719: Erdogmus vs Topalov

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.
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Game of the Week #718: Sindarov vs Praggnanandhaa

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.
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