Game of the Week #522: A positional masterpiece

by Merijn van Delft
6/30/2022 – In his “Game of the Week” show #522 Merijn van Delft looks at a positional masterpiece, in which the knights got dancing and the pawns pushed ahead. | 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 #522

Obviously the Candidates are in full swing and will soon coming to an end with Nepomniachtchi and Caruana being the main contenders. Of course the key games of the Candidates automatically qualify as Game of the Week, but since they already get tons of attention, we figured we will take another game.

The Dutch Grandmaster Max Warmerdam, who is a friend of the show, pointed out the positional masterpiece Sjugirov-Murzin, which we happily present.

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

 

This week’s show

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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<< Firouzja on tilt? Bullet-chess spree amid Candidates Tournament
Candidates R11: Nepo wins, Caruana collapses >>
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 #528: Caruana vs Gukesh

8/10/2022 – In his “Game of the Week” show #528 Merijn van Delft looks at another impressive game played at the Chess Olympiad in Chennai: Gukesh's convincing win with Black against Fabiano Caruana. | 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>.
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See also

Game of the Week #527: Caruana vs Abdusattorov

8/4/2022 – In his “Game of the Week” show Merijn van Delft looks at one of the most impressive games played in the Chess Olympiad 2022 in Chennai: Nodirbek Abdusattorov's convincing win against Fabiano Caruana with the black pieces. | 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>.
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Video

60m Botvinnik System

The setup for White recommended by Valeri Lilov is solid and easy to play – the thematic moves are almost always the same ones: Nge2, 0-0, Bg5 (or Be3), Nd5, Qd2. Later, according to Black’s setup, things continue with f4 or even Rac1, b4 and play on the queenside. Starting with the classic Botvinnik-Spassky, Leiden 1970, the author describes this universally employable setup in 7 videos (+ intro and conclusion).