Game of the Week #667: Lu Shanglei vs Eltaj Safarli, Reykjavik Open 2025

by Merijn van Delft
4/19/2025 – In his latest Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft analyses an encounter played at the Reykjavik Open between Lu Shanglei and Eltaj Safarli. Lu conducted the game in beautiful positional fashion, and once White gained the upper hand, the tactics all started to work in his favour. | 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 #667

A few days before the start of the Reykjavik Open, the legendary first Islandic grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson passed away at the age of 90. Our Game of the Week was played at the Reykjavik Open between Lu Shanglei and Eltaj Safarli.

Just like Olafsson did so many times, Lu Shanglei conducted the game in beautiful positional fashion, with a keen eye for the dynamic features of the position. Once White gained the upper hand, the tactics all started to work in his favour.

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

Lu Shanglei v. Eltaj Safarli - Reykjavik Open 2025
Position after 26...Bd8

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 #666: B. Khotenashvili vs T. Injac, European Women's Championship 2025

4/10/2025 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft takes a look at the European Women's Championship as it nears the finish line. With two rounds to go, Teodora Injac from Serbia is leading with 8.0/9. In round 8, she won an important and exciting game against Bela Khotenashvili. | 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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Game of the Week #665: M. Blübaum - D. Yuffa, European Championship 2025

4/4/2025 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft looks back at the European Championship, which was won by German grandmaster Matthias Blübaum. Merijn analyses one of the decisive games of the tournament: Blübaum's win against Daniil Yuffa, which helped Blübaum win the tournament. | 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 New ideas in the Najdorf_E

‘New ideas in the Najdorf – a Power Play 18 Update’ aims to complement Daniel King’s popular DVD from last year ‘The Sicilian Najdorf - a repertoire for Black’. Such a dynamic and popular opening as the Najdorf is developing the whole time. On this download, Daniel King updates lines that were included on his DVD but also responds to viewers’ requests, considering lines that he omitted from his original repertoire. The lines examined on this update are: • 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a6 6 h3 e5 7 Nde2 • 5….a6 6 Bc4 in combination with the English Attack (Be3, f3 etc) • 5…a6 6 Be3 and the …a5 variation • 5…a6 6 Be2 and 9 Re1 • 5 f3 (instead of 5 Nc3) It isn’t necessary to have seen the original Najdorf DVD to understand the lines examined here – but it would help as they form part of a complete repertoire.
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