Game of the Week #673: A. Erigaisi - Gukesh, Norway Chess 2025

by Merijn van Delft
5/29/2025 – In the latest episode of his Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft analyses a game played by two of India's top grandmasters at the Norway Chess Tournament: Arjun Erigaisi vs. Gukesh. Erigaisi demonstrated both his class and creativity. | 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 #673

Norway Chess boasts a brilliant line-up this year, including Carlsen, Nakamura, Caruana, Erigaisi, Gukesh and Wei Yi. The one thing that arguably spoils the fun a little is the 10-second increment. A classical game of chess deserves a 30-second increment.

Carlsen beat Gukesh in their direct encounter, proving that he is still the best.

In our Game of the Week, however, Erigaisi demonstrated his creative talent by beating Gukesh with unconventional play.

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

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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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.