Game of the Week #650: N. Abdusattorov - L. Mendonca

by Merijn van Delft
12/20/2024 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft looks at a game Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Leon Mendonca played at the Qatar Masters - a game that was fascinating and full of surprises from beginning to end. | 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 #650

The final game of the World Championship was very anticlimactic. Ding suffered too much from the tension, played unconvincingly for a draw and made a dramatic blunder. Of course, Gukesh deserves the highest praise for his fighting spirit and has a bright future ahead of him.

A major theme of the World Championship was the French Defence, and our Game of the Week is Abdusattorov-Mendonca from the final round of the Qatar Masters, which featured a very unknown opening idea, first played by Popovic in 1979.

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

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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 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.