Game of the Week #740: Erigaisi vs Laohawirapap

by Merijn van Delft
9/26/2026 – The Olympiad in Samarkand has started and basically everyone is playing, including Gukesh and Sindarov. The Olympiad remains a most impressive event, with all these countries participating. In the first round there are many 4-0 results, but also the usual upsets. It looked like Erigaisi was going to easily beat IM Prin Laohawirapap from Thailand, but the position remained more tricky then you would think at first view and eventually turned into a complete mess, 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.
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 #739

The Olympiad in Samarkand has started and basically everyone is playing, including Gukesh and Sindarov. The Olympiad remains a most impressive event, with all these countries participating. In the first round there are many 4-0 results, but also the usual upsets. It looked like Erigaisi was going to easily beat IM Prin Laohawirapap from Thailand, but the position remained more tricky then you would think at first view and eventually turned into a complete mess, which is our Game of the Week.

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

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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<< Chess Olympiad - Live!
Hidden highlights from the Olympiad: Alexei Sarana takes his king for a walk >>
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.
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See also

Game of the Week #739: Madaminov vs Suleymanli

9/14/2026 – Very often our Game of the Week is a pretty model game, sometimes it is just a very adventurous game like Fier's samba game last week. Today we have a game from yet another category: Mukhiddin Madaminov was well on his way to create a beautiful masterpiece, but Aydin Suleymanli turned out to be a tough defender and the difficulty of the position completely got out of control. We will examine how sacrificing a rook and two pieces was actually fully correct and how White could have crowned his attack. 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>.

See also

Game of the Week #738: Fier vs Pechac

9/5/2026 – Our Brazilian friend Alexandr Fier is known for his samba way of playing chess: playing active chess, looking for adventure, taking risks, going for the direct attack whenever possible. Since he plays his moves very fast, he puts additional pressure on the clock. His games are not always correct, but surely entertaining. Our Game of the Week is his great fight with Jergus Pechac, in which both players found many creative moves, until eventually Fier found a lovely finish. 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>.

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!