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Game of the Week 484: Giri vs Carlsen

by Merijn van Delft

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10/6/2021 – This week, Merijn van Delft shows an instructive game in which Magnus Carlsen defeated Anish Giri with the black pieces after navigating a position with a curious material imbalance. | 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 #484

The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals 2021 were won by world champion Magnus Carlsen, mainly because he started the event with a significant lead in points gained in the earlier events. The Meltwater games saw a lot of freestyling, creative moves and also some weird blunders.

We decided to select one of the Giri vs Carlsen games as our Game of the Week, a confrontation that included an instructive material imbalance.

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

A. Giri vs M. Carlsen - Champions Chess Tour

Position after 8.a4

Practical Chess Strategy: The Bishop

When it comes to strategy, one of the key things that chess professionals understand much better than amateur players is the role of the bishop which is the key theme on this video course.

This week’s show

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The flexible Open Spanish

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 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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