Game of the Week #678: Abdusattorov - Praggnanandhaa, Tashkent 2025

by Merijn van Delft
7/5/2025 – In the new episode of his Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft analyses the all-important game facing Nodirbek Abdsuattorov against Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in the final round of the UzChess Cup. Pragg won on demand and went on to claim tournament victory in tiebreaks. | Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can register a Premium account here.
In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM” with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.

Game of the Week #678

Last week we studied Richard Rapport's masterpiece in the King's Indian against Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, but after that game, Pragg made an outstanding comeback in the UzChess Cup.

In the final round, Pragg managed to beat Abdusattorov with Black to catch up with the tournament leaders, which is our Game of the Week. It is rather puzzling that Abdusattorov went for a messy type of position, instead of keeping the position under control at all times, allowing Pragg to build up his lethal counterattack.

Warm-up question: What would you play here with Black?

This week's show

In this opening Black opts for active piece play and is not afraid to fight for the initiative from an early stage. One of the many good features of this opening is that Black is often the side which controls the pace of the game.

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Merijn van Delft is an International Master from the Netherlands who lived in Hamburg for many years and is currently based in Amsterdam. After scoring a GM norm in 2017 he is eager for more. His ChessBase show on Wednesday evenings has been running for over ten years now.