Game of the Week #676: A. Erigaisi - V. Anand, London 2025

by Merijn van Delft
6/18/2025 – In the new episode of his Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft analyzes a game between two Indian players: Vishy Anand’s brilliant win against Arjun Erigaisi at the World Rapid Team Championship in London. Erigaisi went for an aggressive attack, but Anand kept his cool and countered effectively. | 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 #676

Over the past week, the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Team Championships took place in London, producing a wealth of spectacular games. Former World Champion Vishy Anand participated as well, demonstrating that he still possesses much of his former strength—especially in rapid chess.
Our Game of the Week features his flashy win with Black against Arjun Erigaisi. While White opted for dynamic and tactical play, Black kept a cool head and eventually seized the initiative.

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

A. Erigaisi - V. Anand, London 2025
Position after 14...Ne5

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 #675: E. de Boer - A. Fier, Limburg 2025

6/14/2025 – In the latest episode of his Game of the Week show, Merijn van Delft presents a game that he discovered at the Limburg Open. In this game, underdog Eelke de Boer (Elo 2409) outplayed Brazilian Grandmaster Alexander Fier (Elo 2556). | 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 #673: A. Erigaisi - Gukesh, Norway Chess 2025

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 <a href="https://account.chessbase.com/en/create-account" target="_blank">register a Premium account here</a>.

Video

60m The Two Knights

This entry into the 60 minutes series concentrates on the Modern variation of the Italian game where White opens the centre early : 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 exd4 5 e5!. This line can be reached by various move orders, most frequently from the Scotch 3 d4 exd4 4 Bc4. It's a sharp variation and Grandmasters such as Evgeny Sveshnikov have used it frequently,with very good results. It's a perfect line for club players to adopt which is relatively easy to learn and which contains many traps. All the main responses are covered here, including 5...d5, 5...Ng4 and 5...Ne4 and the conclusion is that is is difficult for Black to equalize in a straightforward way. Problems are being posed, which over the board might prove tough to solve.
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