Game of the Week #662: T. Beerdson - A. Isik, Prague 2025

by Merijn van Delft
3/17/2025 – In his new Game of the Week show Merijn van Delft looks at a model game that helped Dutch grandmaster Thomas Beerdsen to win the Open at the Chess Festival Prague. | 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 #662

We will return to the 7th Prague International Chess Festival once more. Last week we focused on the top group and showed Aravindh's brilliant win against Anish Giri. This week we will look at the Open, which was won by Dutch grandmaster Thomas Beerdsen.

While Thomas is known for his entertaining coffee house style, recently he has adopted a more universal style and this handsomely pays off.

Our Game of the Week is the model game he won in the final round against strong Turkish IM Alparslan Isik.

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

T. Beerdson - A. Isik, Chess Festival Prague 2025, Open
Position after 16....Nb6

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.

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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 #661: A. Giri - Aravindh Chithambaram, Prague Masters 2025

3/11/2025 – In his new Game of the Week show Merijn van Delft looks at one of the most remarkable games played in 2025: Aravindh Chithambarm's crucial victory against Anish Giri at the Prague Masters. | 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 #660: F. Svane - V. Keymer, Bundesliga 2024/2025

2/27/2025 – In his new Game of the Week show Merijn van Delft looks at a game from the German Bundesliga - and at a game, in which Vincent Keymer, Germany's number 1, played against Frederik Svane, Germany's number 2 - it was an interesting game. | 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 English The Elephant Gambit

The Elephant Gambit (1.e4.e5 2.Nf3 d5!?) has never really been given the attention it deserves. It is a very useful surprise weapon. Let us list the advantages of playing this particular opening: 1) Shock value 2) It is very aggressive. Black can take over the initiative early. 3) Many tricky lines 4) Unorthodox. Black is basically taking the game to the opponent as early as move two. Not many openings do that! It's a perfect opening for young players and club players to adopt. Let Andrew Martin select a repertoire for you on this 60 mins, which, if used with discretion, will rack up the points. I am sure that you will enjoy this unusual tour of the Elephant Gambit.
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