Game of the Week #729: Warmerdam vs Van Wely

by Merijn van Delft
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.
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 #729

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.

Warming-up question: What would you play here with White?
 

This week's show

Besides covering all the critical lines after 1.d4 & 2.c4, popular systems such as the Trompovsky, London/Jobava System, Torre Attack, Colle System and Veresov are dealt with as well.

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Topics: The Game of the Week, Training and improvement
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.