Game of the Week
How to make a middlegame plan
Welcome back to game of the week! As always, these are the ground rules:
Game of the Week is not a brilliancy prize. In fact, you’re more likely to have your game chosen if you share a loss. These often have more to teach us than our wins.
The player whose game is selected for Game of the Week will get a free month’s paid subscription. Just to sweeten the pot a little.
I will only consider submissions in the comments section of this post for Game of the Week. It’s just easier for me to have them all in one place.
As always, the video and Lichess Study analysis are available for everyone, but only paid subs can submit games.
On to the game! This week’s game comes from Nahuel. This game really hinged on the opening to middlegame transition, the moment where you have to make a plan for the middlegame.
On with the game!
Thank you for reviewing my game Nate! You hit the nail in the head. I could see my position was better but I couldn’t come up with an obvious, logical plan. I had some idea of rerouting my knight (hence Bd3), but not much more. I considered 12. Na4 but felt that 12… b6 stopped me from going to c5. However I see now that it could still have been worth it to further weaken black.
In the end, I should have just improved my rooks as you suggested as black has no immediate threats and has a cramped position.
Food for thought, thanks again. The following league game last Sunday went well with the same Colle opening. The difference was that there was always a clear plan to keep the initiative.
Here is a candidate game you may wish to review, which I lost. [Event "Columbia SC Senior Open, Nov 2025 Roger Johnson - Andrew Perry 1-0"]
[Date "2025.11.12"]
1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 e6 3. e3 Nf6 4. Bd3 Bd6 5. Bg3 O-O 6. Nd2 c5 7. c3 Nc6 8. f4 cxd4 9. exd4 Ne8 10. Qc2 f5 11. Ngf3 Qc7 12. Ne5 Nxe5 13. fxe5 Be7 14. h4 Nf6 15. Bf4 Ng4 16. Nf3 Bd7 17. h5 Rf7 18. O-O-O Kf8 19. Rdf1 Ke8 20. Qd2 a5 21. Nh2 Nxh2 22. Rxh2 h6 23. g4 Kd8 24. g5 Bf8 25. gxh6 gxh6 26. Bxh6 Bc6 27. Rg1 Qe7 28. Bg5 *