Game of the Week #671: M. Vachier-Lagrave vs Gukesh, Superbet Classic Tournament, Bucharest 2025

by Merijn van Delft
5/16/2025 – In his new Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft shows how Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won a fine game against World Champion Gukesh at the Superbet Classic Tournament in Bucharest. | 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 #671

Last week we saw the masterpiece Firouzja-MVL from the first round of the Superbet Chess Classic. Just when you think that's a logical result, because the new generation tends to take over, MVL bounces back with a crushing victory over Gukesh, which is our current Game of the Week.

The world champion is having a disastrous tournament and was in last place after seven rounds. The choice of opening, the good old Scotch, must have come as a suprise, and trouble started early on.

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

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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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.