Game of the Week #736: Keymer with White

by Merijn van Delft
8/21/2026 – Vincent Keymer played an absolutely fenomenal Sinquefield Cup: judging from the chances he created with his trademark opening play, he should have finished clear first. In times where 1.e4 and 1.d4 main lines are analysed to a draw, Keymer manages to create hyper flexible positions from the Reti, English, Neo London and Accelerated (!) Neo London. While the original plan was to talk you through Keymer-Caruana, this video talks you through the opening stages of all five Keymer games with White. 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 #736

Vincent Keymer played an absolutely fenomenal Sinquefield Cup: judging from the chances he created with his trademark opening play, he should have finished clear first. In times where 1.e4 and 1.d4 main lines are analysed to a draw, Keymer manages to create hyper flexible positions from the Reti, English, Neo London and Accelerated (!) Neo London. While the original plan was to talk you through Keymer-Caruana, this video talks you through the opening stages of all five Keymer games with White.

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.

Watch previous shows

Recent shows

Many more Game of the Week shows are available in ChessBase Videos

At the airport, in the hotel or at home on your couch: with the new ChessBase you always have access to the whole ChessBase world: the new ChessBase video library, tactics server, opening training App, the live database with eight million games, Let’s Check and web access to playchess.com

Links

<< Tartakower's torpedo
Daniel King's Power Play Show: Salo Flohr >>
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.
Discussion and Feedback Submit your feedback to the editors

See also

Game of the Week #735: Andreikin vs Praggnanandhaa

8/12/2026 – The most remarkable result of the Quantbox Chennai Grandmasters 2026 is that World Champion Gukesh continues to suffer, finishing in last place with 2 out of 7. It continues to show that the world title comes with a lot of pressure, especially for such a young player. The tournament was won by Firouzja with 4.5 out of 7. Our Game of the Week is the strong last round win by Andreikin vs Abdusattorov, with a very interesting pawn structure.Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can <a href="https://account.chessbase.com/en/create-account" target="_blank">register a Premium account here</a>.
More...
 1

See also

Game of the Week #734: Lahaye vs Harshavardhan

8/7/2026 – At the Dutch Open in Dieren many interesting games were played, including several GOTW candidates. Especially the seventh round was a bloody affair with decisive results at the first five boards. My old friend Rick Lahaye (2394) played a positional masterpiece against IM Harshavardhan (2508). Without wanting to spoil too much, it's the perfect example of playing with a classical Nimzowitsch blockading knight and its longterm power. Merijn's show is available on-demand with a ChessBase Premium Account. You can <a href="https://account.chessbase.com/en/create-account" target="_blank">register a Premium account here</a>.
More...
 1

Video

60m English A solid scandinavian surprise

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!