Game of the Week #585: Vidit vs. MVL

by Merijn van Delft
9/16/2023 – In his Game of the Week show #584, Merijn Van Delft analyses a typical win by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave — the winner of the Tata Steel India Rapid event showed his ability to deal with complicated positions in his game with black against Vidit Gujrathi! | 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 #585

Last week we mentioned that the Tata Steel India Rapid event in Kolkata produced a lot of interesting top-level fighting games, so we decided to pick a game by the tournament winner, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who is actually number four in the rapid-chess world ranking.

MVL’s win in the third round, with Black, against Vidit is a very characteristic one. Sacrificing a lot of material objectively led to a lost position — but MVL thrives on these positions and eventually won!

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

Vidit - Vachier-Lagrave, Tata Steel India Rapid 2023
Position after 21.Ra1

This week’s show

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.

Watch previous shows

Recent shows

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

Links

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.
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.