Wei Yi and the Quest for Initiative

Wei Yi first caught the attention of the chess world in 2015 at the age of 15 when he became the youngest player to reach 2700. Around this time, he won many attacking masterpieces in his favourite type of open, dynamic middlegames arising out of 1.e4 and the Sicilian. Two games in this style that come to mind are his wins against Lazara Bruzon and David Navara. The former quickly became famous because of the impressive sacrifices, while the latter had an even greater social impact. For the first time in history, Berlin players feared they might get checkmated right out of the opening.

His rise to the top and aggressive playing style have many similarities to that of Alireza Firouzja, but unlike Firouzja, Wei Yi stayed around 2730 for several years and didn't quite establish himself as a member of the elite, thus missing out on many closed tournament invitations. Fast forward to this year's Tata Steel Masters, Wei Yi scored 8.5/13, winning the tournament after playoffs and breaking into the top 10. Our first game shows an important win he scored over Max Warmerdam on his path to tournament victory.

(By the way, I created a short Google Form to receive feedback from readers. All responses are anonymous, and those who wish to provide their Lichess username will be entered into a draw where three people are selected to play a correspondence game against me).

Our second game was played last month in the Chinese league and it features a nice tactical idea against the solid Petroff Defence.

Wei Yi will be back in action at the Olympiad next month in Budapest, alongside Ding Liren.

~Hurburt