Category: English

More than a year later, the Candidates’ Tournament will resume on 19 April, in Ekaterinburg (Russia) again. After a last minute ticket, I had done rather well in the first half of the tournament, as at the time of the break, I was leading ex-aequo with Ian Nepomniachtchi (but ahead of him in the tie-break). Remember that the winner of this tournament will face Magnus Carlsen for the World title, from 26 November to 15 December in Dubai (United Arab Emirates).

In one year, the world has changed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The practice of chess has adapted, with a multiplication of online tournaments, in which I have had mixed fortunes 🙂 . In the only face-to-face tournament I played during this period (Tata Steel, January 2021), my results were clearly bad. I took this reminder as an incentive to better approach the resumption of the Candidates Tournament, which is the most important event of my career to date.

For weeks I have been concentrating on these seven upcoming games. Because of the circumstances, I have had time to prepare myself well, both physically and mentally. On the chess side, I have spent a lot of time with my coach Etienne Bacrot, who runs my seconds team.

A new start

After the first half of the tournament, I’m going into a seven-game mini-tournament as the leader. With so few rounds and only a small point difference between the top six, every half point will be crucial, and I’m obviously expecting some hard-fought games.

I arrived in Ekaterinburg on Wednesday 14 April with GM Sébastien Mazé, not without a few administrative problems due to the difficulty of travelling at the moment. I now have four days to acclimatise and get used to the time difference (+3 hours compared to Paris). Of course, this will also be the opportunity to make the final adjustments.

My pairing at the beginning of this second half is not the easiest one, as I will successively face Fabiano Caruana and Ding Liren with the black pieces. But in any case, I will have to perform well in every game to hope to win this tournament.

See you on Monday 19th at 4pm (local) for my first game against Caruana…

Yes, the Candidates’ Tournament is a great sporting event, and one of the last in the world to be suspended on 26 March 2020. But in the current context of tougher international travel conditions, it was probably not easy for anyone to prepare their trip to Ekaterinburg, where the competition will resume on 19 April. For Maxime and Sébastien Mazé, the travel permit issued by the Ministry of Sports was not easy to obtain. Maxime’s manager, Laurent Vérat, and the President of the FFE, Yves Marek, had to intervene several times and take their time before finally receiving the precious sesame. On the Russian side, things were easier for the visa, thanks to the efficient intervention of the FIDE lawyer at the Russian embassy in Paris.
Despite a very long passport control at the Moscow stopover, Maxime and Sébastien were finally able to cross the last hurdle and board the SU1414 flight to Ekaterinburg…
Let’s play!

Since my mediocre performance at the Tata Steel in January, I have had the opportunity to play two Champions Chess Tour tournaments.

Obviously, these online tournaments cannot be approached as seriously as a major event such as the Candidates, which will resume on 19 April in Yekaterinburg. However, they are still quite an integral part of my preparation; indeed, the work to be done is not only, as one might think, purely theoretical, even if this is obviously very important. The training games are also an indispensable element, and in particular the 23 that I played during the Magnus Invitational, five weeks before the Candidates, made sense.

Especially when you meet the best players in the world, even if it’s online, even if it’s not the same conditions as in the Candidates’ tournament, it’s still not a bad way to prepare 🙂 .

In addition, my personal goal was also to regain some confidence after the miserable Tata Steel. And to succeed in playing good games without the final result necessarily being paramount.

Of course, « training tournaments » does not mean that I took these competitions lightly. I didn’t lose to Carlsen in the tie-break of the first tournament on purpose, nor did I do the same to Giri in the ¼ final!

Here is a quick summary of the first two tournaments of this year’s Champions Chess Tour online:

OPERA RAPID, 6-14 FEBRUARY

Unlike the first two tournaments of the tour, in November and December 2020, I qualified relatively easily in the preliminary phase.

The knockout matches were more tense. At first, I took my revenge from the previous tournament by eliminating Aronian in the quarter-finals. I think the way I did it was pretty convincing, even if it wasn’t perfect because I almost let him back into the match when I was leading in the second set after winning the first. Then I had a pretty good semi-final against Carlsen, with a bad first set, but also a great second one! After another draw in the blitz against the world champion, I finally lost with black in the final Armaggedon game.

MAGNUS INVITATIONAL, 13-21 MARCH

Again, I played quite seriously in the preliminary phase and secured my qualification spot. Then I lost the quarter-final against the future winner, Anish Giri. I can have some regrets about the first set, especially the second game which I lost stupidly from a very good position; unfortunately, I was a bit misleaded in my attack, which was badly prepared.

But in the second set, there’s not much to say because I didn’t play well enough to hope for anything. Except maybe in the first game, which was probably the best of the match, because I thought he was going to collapse in a difficult position, but he really defended very well.

However, this defeat in the quarter-finals was in the end a blessing in disguise, as I avoided four more days of play 🙂 .

Now it’s time for the final stretch before the Candidates…

My specific preparation started in mid-February, first in Paris, then in the Alps, and now in the south of France. I am obviously working with Etienne Bacrot, as well as with others, whose identity will however remain a mystery 🙂 . Besides, the other aspects of the preparation have also been taken into account, apart from the specific chess work; sports, physiological and mental preparation, all in order to be at my best in Russia…

I will arrive in Yekaterinburg only a few days before the start of the tournament on 19 April, which I will enter in pole position; an unprecedented situation, but one that I sure enjoy 🙂 .

What is clear is that the first half of the tournament will be crucial, as I will start by doubling black against Caruana and Ding Liren, before facing the man in form at the moment, Giri; a complicated start, which I will have to negotiate as well as possible.

Generally speaking, in a short format of 7 games, it is clear that every half point will be worth a lot. Of course, I also noticed the game of the 13th and penultimate round against co-leader Nepo…

Anyway, the ball is now in my court. I know that if I manage to be in the best possible shape, then I will have every chance of winning…

Maxime’s games (Opera Rapid):

Maxime’s games (Magnus Invitational):

In early March, Maxime chose STAKRN Agency to accompany him in his long-term development strategy. The agency, specialised in the worlds of gaming and esports, will be in charge of developing sponsoring opportunities, partnerships and activations. It will also explore the appetite of professional teams who are beginning to invest in the game of chess, for a « pure player » of the world’s elite like MVL.
It seems obvious today that a strong link is being forged between the esport and chess worlds. Maxime’s manager, Laurent Vérat, will work with STAKRN Agency’s teams to study collaboration opportunities in the sector, using the agency’s network and know-how.

I arrived in Wijk aan zee ten days before the start of the Tata Steel tournament in order to respect the quarantine period before the tournament started. Most of the players preferred to have this quarantine time during the tournament, but I thought it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea to acclimatise to Wijk. I didn’t have an ideal environment in Paris either, with not much more to do than in the small Dutch seaside town. Well, I probably underestimated that 25 days there, with all the restaurants closed and a very early curfew, was going to be a bit long!

I especially lacked activity because when I could go outside, it was either freezing cold or there was that unpleasant wind so typical!

But the most important thing is that I was happy to play again in a live tournament and to find some reference points before the Candidates’ resumption.

Concerning the overall analysis of my tournament, I’m not going to beat around the bush, it was clearly a failure all way long. Obviously, there were a lot of things that didn’t work. Having said that, I prefer to take this as a no-cost warning and frankly, I don’t expect to show this terrible level of play in the Candidates. In any case, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen 🙂 .

On the whole, I didn’t get the positions I wanted and even in the rare cases where I did get them, I would quickly make mistakes that ruined everything.

At the beginning of the tournament, the situation didn’t seem so bad, with 4 draws in a row, but without losing and with some chances, notably against Anton and Firouzja. It’s true that it could have changed my tournament, but in general, my level of play was too low to say that it was played on details; that’s not the case at all, and the truth is that I showed too many weaknesses.

First of all, from the beginning I felt that I didn’t have the same marks as usual and that clearly there was something wrong. The long interruption of the physical tournaments, the isolation and the quarantine in Wijk, the complicated preparation for the Candidates, all this obviously played a role…

Then, I got some bad reflexes back when the tournament started to go wrong; desire to be back on track too quickly, hasty decision making, loss of motivation… But in any case, I made miscalculations that shouldn’t happen, as well as errors of judgement that shouldn’t happen either.

As a result, I rarely had the opportunity to play my A-game. One of the few games where I did have that opportunity was against Giri, and even there I found myself in trouble from a position that looked so promising!

Here, I had sacrificed the exchange and a pawn, but white can no longer move a piece! But no luck, the position remains objectively balanced and I unfortunately tried to take the advantage at all costs.

That’s why I played 34…b4?! after 15 minutes of thought because, to put it plainly, I didn’t want to do nothing but wait, and then what else than …b4?. After 35.axb4 Qxb4 I mainly looked at 36.Ra4, while his move 36.d6 was more critical. I continued with 36…Rb8 (maybe 36…Be6!?) 37.Ra3, and here I had to find the only move that holds the fort down, 37…Db5! which is still, given my position three moves before, quite incredible 🙂 . Which I failed to do, and I quickly went downhill after 37…Qb7? 38.Kc1! Qd7 39.Qd5 Bxd6 40.Ra6! (1-0, 70 moves).

Instead of going to -1, I found myself at -3 with 4 rounds to go, definitively ruining my tournament.

In spite of my deplorable final result (5/13), it was nice to be able to meet all the players I hadn’t seen face to face for some time 🙂 . And my guess is that the organisation was at the level of the moment’s requirements – very high ones obviously – and this even if the arbiter in the last game of the tournament (intervention at the end of the game Firouzja-Wojtaszek to move on another board); but obviously it did not deserve the torrent of gratuitous nastiness that spilled over onto the organisers afterwards.

A quick word about Jorden Van Foreest, who defied all predictions and won convincingly in front of his (virtual) home audience.

In conclusion, I would say that this tournament has highlighted the fact that I still have a lot of things to improve. I have a good two months of preparation in perspective for the Candidates, since if there are no guarantees on the exact dates, everything indicates that the tournament will resume in the second half of April in Russia.

With a clear deadline now looming on the horizon, I know what I still have to do…

Maxime’s games:

During the previous Champions Chess Tour tournament, the quality of the air breathed at home by five of the participants was measured (Carlsen, So, Giri, Harikrishna and Mvl). The detectors tracked Co2, temperature, as well as humidity, volatile organic compounds, and radon.

And over the duration of the tournament, Maxime enjoyed the healthiest air on average. Coincidentally or not, Airthings noticed that it was also the one of the five who went the furthest, finishing third in the tournament!

The Indian Harikrishna was the “bad pupil”, as you can see from the figures below…

Not mine, of course, but the one in my home – the air in my Parisian flat. Indeed, the sponsor of the second Champions Chess Tour tournament was the company Airthings, which specialises in air analysis. As a result, all the participants received a small box that allowed the commentators to give a regular overview of the quality of the air the players breathed 🙂 . With around 800 ppm of CO2, I think I was in a good average!

The Airthings tournament was the first of the 3 Majors of the circuit, guaranteeing a double prize fund and Tour points. That said, in terms of preparation, I must confess it’s not easy to start a tournament right after celebrating Christmas 🙂 .

Generally speaking, I didn’t play very well in the Preliminaries, especially since I missed the few opportunities I had.

PRELIMINARY PHASE

I owe my qualification to a last-minute miracle, combining an improbable (and unique) last round victory with black against Grischuk with other results – all in my favour! Qualifying 8 players out of 12 participants seems like a lot, but in the end, as I had a round 4 accident against Nepo, I found myself in a bit of trouble early on. I managed to get some more chances against Dubov and Aronian, but in the end I only scored one point out of these three games! So after eight rounds I was still at a winless -1. It was clear that it wasn’t going to be enough, especially since my last day was set to be difficult. I first lost a game against Giri in which we were both all-in, before I made an unexpected rescue against Radjabov and finished on this unexpected black win against Grischuk.

So the turning point for me was this 4th round, where not only did I miss a direct win, but I even ended up losing that game!

In spite of his spectacular Rook move to h2, Nepo has his King in a mating net, and the simple 37.Rxg6! would have put an end to the game: if 37…Rxf2 38.Rf6+ Kg4 39.Nxf2+, and if 37…Rf8 38.Rxh2 Bxe4+ 39.Kc3 Bxg6 40.Rf2+ (the move I had forgotten) regains the Rook, with a clear exchange up in both cases.

Instead, I played 37.Rxh2? Bxe4+ 38.Kd2, but the ending was not easy at all, although obviously the loss was not necessary at the end 🙂 . In fact, I pushed too hard to win, and I made a few risky decisions, because I thought I would always have a draw somewhere in the worst case. It didn’t happen like that and the moral is that you shouldn’t be stubbornly looking for what doesn’t exist! (0-1, 69 moves).

1/4 FINAL : MVL – SO 2-1

After this hard-fought qualification, my match against So started almost in the best possible way. Because if with white, I wasn’t majestic against the Berlin (in spite of promising positions), I caused some damage with the Najdorf 🙂 .

After a struggle of rare complexity and – I believe – very high quality play, we reached the position of the diagram. Impossible to summarize the first 40 moves otherwise than by a complete bazaar on the board after bold risks taken by Wesley. Here, it is the spectacular move 41…Rf3!, threatening mate in one while cutting the Bg2’s diagonal, which allowed me to change the game for good. After 42.Qd8+ Kc6 43.Bg3 Qe6! I control as many squares as possible and in practice, the position becomes a nightmare for white to play. He immediately cracked under the pressure with 44.Rb1? which allows the liquidation sequence 44…Rxg2+! 45.Kxg2 Rxg3+ 46.Kxg3 Qg6+ 0-1. The machine claims that 44.Kh1! was still holding, but I think it would have been very, very hard for him anyway.

I also won the second Najdorf in the last game of the set, after a big mistake from him in the opening.

In the second set, it was more complicated, especially with this defeat in the first game, a Grünfeld where I did everything wrong in the opening. Then I brought myself to a good defensive performance, and I even almost succeeded to reach a draw, although I ended up losing. He defended the Berlin very, very well in the second game and didn’t try his luck in the third with white. By winning the fourth, I would have equalized the set and won the match without any tie-break; I felt that I had a big advantage, but I didn’t manage to make it work. Then I even found myself slightly worse because I pushed too hard and then lost the trend. But it was at the moment when it became easier for him that he let me back into the game, losing his pawns one after the other, until he had to transpose into an inferior endgame. But kudos for his tenacity in this opposite-coloured Bishop endgame which seemed very delicate to hold (1/2, 92 moves).

In the tie-break, I was able to shoot his Berlin wall, before losing the return blitz by missing an obvious move in the opening.

Here, 12…e4! refuted white’s opening by forcing the horrible 13.Ng1 (13.Qxe4? Ff5!). After this miss and 12…Re8? 13.Bxc5 e4 14.Nd4, I never had enough compensation for the pawn (1-0, 34 moves).

So, everything was going to be decided in the Armaggedon. Many were surprised by So’s choice to take white, even though we know his solidity and his ability to hold positions. But I had a feeling he would opt for the extra minute and the move, as he had been in trouble with black in our match, and to defend a Berlin with 4 minutes against 5, good luck! I understand that in general the sample is rather in favour of Black so far, but it is only a small sample and we have to take into account the specificities of each confrontation. In any case, I think his choice was fully justified, and if it had been up to me to choose, in a situation that would have been kind of symmetrical, I would have opted for white as well. So I myself had a strong decision to make, because I had also been in trouble with black in the Anti-Grünfeld. So I finally took the gamble of changing – albeit risky – to a Hedgehog, theoretically more solid. I suffered, it wasn’t perfect, but I held the draw and won the right to face my friend Levon in the semi-final.

1/2 FINAL : MVL – ARONIAN 0-2

I was immediately in difficulty with a first loss with white, after having clearly overestimated my position; note the very efficient conversion of Levon.

Then there were two draws, the second one being a real defensive performance from him, with moreover little time on the clock. The last game of the first set was therefore for me a must win with black, which can’t work every time 🙂 .

I didn’t have so many problems in the second set. But once again, Levon defended very accurately and it is true that he won the match on his quality to hold difficult positions, since I never managed to score against the Berlin. It could have passed at least once if he hadn’t performed some little miracles in defence. Especially in the second game, with all his weak pawns and the opposite-couloured Bishops.

In the third game, which would turn out to be the last one, a too quick choice in the opening will have been fatal for me:

Here, I knew 8…Bg7 was the move, but I quickly decided to swap on d4 first, to take away options like 9.c4 (which wouldn’t have been good anyway). But after 8…cxd4? 9.Qxd4! (the bad news, instead of 9.cxd4 Bg7 which transposes into a normal variation), I found myself compelled to exchange Queens, which is really not the idea of the position 🙂 9…Qxd4 10.cxd4 Nc6 11.Nf3 and white is simply better. Then I defended as I could – rather ingeniously, by the way – until I finally cracked at the moment when the draw was within reach!

In this position, I missed a simple liquidation because it had not been possible a few moves before, when the King was on e7 because of Kd4 Kf6 / Bd3 and Black is prevented from playing …e5. But here, simply 67…Bxc5! 68.dxc5 Bxa4 69.Bd3 (69.Kd4 Kf5 =) 69…e5! 70.f5 Fd7 followed by 71…Bxf5 and we can sign the draw. My move 67…Ke7 may not have been a definite loser, but it was too complicated to defend and Levon won the game, the second set and thus sealed the match (1-0, 113 moves).

MATCH FOR THE 3rd PLACE: MVL – DUBOV 1.5-0.5

I have to admit that I am not a fan of the « little final » because the competitive aspect comes down after a defeat in the semi-final, and this is where the fatigue is really felt by the way. So I didn’t have much fun in this match because I couldn’t motivate myself.

Then, I obviously understand the idea of setting up a match for third place. It’s not a marathon either, like my match against Yu in the 2019 World Cup, which was scheduled over one week 🙂 .

I still managed to have a surge of motivation and energy in the first set, after being led 0-2.

Here, I first looked for a win with the natural 27.Qd5, but I didn’t find it; 27…Qxd5 28.Rxd5 b4 29.Rb5 Bc3 30.Kf1 and it seems that White will win by bringing the King, but in fact it’s not enough: 30…Ra6! 31.Ke2 b3 32.Kd3 (32.Rc5 Ff6! 33.Kd3 b3 and I couldn’t find how to win with the black pawn landing in b2) 32…Be1! and I didn’t see how to progress either; if 33.Re5 Bb4, and if not I can never play Kc4 because of …b2! exchanging the a and b pawns. An exchange which would not be possible with the King on d3 because of …b2?/Rc2, but Black would then be happy to do nothing, and I have no way to make progress. So I reviewed the initial position, and I then found 27.Qd3! which blocks the b-pawn further on. After 27…Qxd3 (on a move like 27…Qc4, 28.Qf3! and the a-pawn becomes a monster) 28.Rxd3 b4 and I was now able to bring the King decisively: 29.Kf1 Kf8 30.Ke2 Bc3 31.Kd1 Ke7 32.Kc2 Ke6 33.Kb3 (1-0, 51 moves).

In the last game of the set, a draw with white was enough for him, but I don’t think it’s Dubov’s style to change his play. He always does his normal stuff – that is tense play- and doesn’t care about the result. So he opted for a pawn sacrifice in the 3.Bb5+ Sicilian. I made a mistake and he immediately had an objectively overwhelming but still complex position, in the sense that there are almost too many attractive options for white. He didn’t choose the most radical one and the position then turned into irrational, a gift from heaven when you are in a must win situation with black! I ended up winning and tied 2-2 the first set, a small miracle that wasn’t deserved at all.

In the second set, I started by winning the first game with black from a losing position again, because of the same combination « fatigue = playong too fast ».

But my quality in quick games is to know how to complicate the position to the utmost, even in the most desperate situations; and there it paid off. There has to be an advantage in playing fast, after all!

In the second game, I managed to find myself slightly worse out of an Italian with white. But there, I took a good practical decision by giving a pawn right away to get out without too much damage, and I drew.

In the third game, I tried to play more solid chess and then I finally did an incredible thing in the following position:

I instinctively rejected 23…Qxe4 because of 24.Qh5, whereas the simple 24…Ne5! 25.Qxh6 Qg6 26.Qxg6+ Nxg6 was enough, because with the control of the e5-square, I risk nothing in this simplified position. After this mistake, I degraded my position again and ended up letting him equalise the set (1-0, 59 moves).

Luckily, I came to my senses in the last game with white, as I succeeded in taking my time at the right moments. I don’t think I would have been able to keep my full concentration in all 4 games of the day, but knowing that this one could be the last, I managed to focus (1-0, 46 moves).

In the end, I finished third in the tournament, earning a correct 5th place in the Tour rankings. I will have to improve in the Preliminary phase, because I came very close to the trap in each of the first two tournaments. Next stage of the Tour, now called Meltwater Champions Tour, will be from February 6th to 14th.

Finally, a short word about the year 2021 which is just beginning. We obviously remain a little bit in the vagueness of the pandemic, especially in relation to the resumption of the Candidates. This is of course the deadline that I have in my sights, even if we are still waiting to know the modalities, the place, the dates etc… Clearly, this will be the main objective of my year. Although, if I was to win the tournament, there would then be a new and even more important challenge for the end of the year 🙂 .

In the meantime, there are a number of other tournaments coming up, in addition to the online Meltwater Champions Tour, and I sense that the calendar for the year is going to be very busy!

In any case to start 2021, I will be happy to make my comeback on the wooden chessboard on the occasion of an Elite competition in Wijk aan zee. I haven’t been back there since the 2015 edition, which I finished in 2nd place – half a point behind Carlsen.

I arrived this Thursday 7th in the small Dutch seaside resort, where a ten-day quarantine awaits me before the start on January 16th 🙂 .

This tournament will allow me to get back in touch with my thinking mechanism in front of the board, which is obviously quite different from the one we deploy during online competitions.

Maxime’s games :

In the context of the Telethon last December, Maxime took part in the « Stars Solidaires  » (in french) operation, a tombola to win prizes offered by celebrities. Alongside many artists, but also some of the biggest names in French sport – M’Bappé, Parker, Gasly… – Maxime contributed to the overall collection of nearly €2.2M for the Telethon, thanks to 600 tickets sold under his name. In February, he will have the pleasure of welcoming the winner of his prize, Benoît, for a private masterclass.
Article on the involvement of French sportsmen: https://oran.ge/3pXOHcb (in french)

As every year, the www.chess.com platform organised its Speed Chess Championship in November-December, and the big novelty in 2020 was obviously the return of Carlsen, after several years of absence. 16 players, knockout format, each match consisting of a duel of increasingly faster games: 90 minutes of 5′, 60′ of 3′, and 30′ of 1′, with an unique increment of one second for each of the cadences; this is the recipe of Speed Chess…

I really like the idea of having a knockout format. The Speed Chess one is excellent, except for one thing, and that’s the main criticism I would have to make. As we are limited in time, certainly if the match is tight, it will be nice to watch anyway. But if it is really too unbalanced, after an hour and a half it can be virtually over, and we play another hour and a half for nothing. In that case, the players don’t enjoy the end of the match, and neither do the spectators. In this sense, I’ve been lucky this year, with some pretty tight matches that all settled down in the last hour. Of course, it’s also because I didn’t know how to kill some matches 🙂 . But elsewhere, this 2020 edition saw a few heads-up that were not necessarily pleasant to follow.

Another argument is that players have the possibility to slow down games voluntarily. For example, by going round in circles when leading on the scoreboard, in certain positions that allow this. That this little subterfuge is used by the players is normal, but they should not be given the opportunity to do so. So, for these two reasons, I don’t understand why we don’t start with sets rather than predefined time periods; with also a mix of all the cadences, in three winning sets. If the match is tight, it will last 3 hours anyway, and if not, then it will be shorter but the winner – for example 3-0 or 3-1 – will be indisputable.

With this reserve made, such a tournament, with almost all the best, it’s sure fun to play. It gives quality matches on the whole, except for some confrontations in the first rounds that were too lopsided.

Obviously, online Speed Chess cannot be compared to some major tournaments, such as the upcoming Tata Steel or the Candidates. But anyway, there is still a rather important dimension to playing these matches, trying to compete with all the best players in the world on formats that are rather long and therefore quite significant. So for me, a victory like the one against Magnus definitely means something 🙂 .

1/8th FINAL: MVL – SARIN 16.5-11.5

A tricky match, against the young Indian, always very dangerous.

I gradually took the lead, being four points ahead after 11 games, and that’s when I let him come back into the match, until only two points of gap remained in the Bullet. But after that, I managed to get back into the race and I took two, then three points of advantage, including three victories in a row.

This is the really critical game because, even if I got a very good position at some moments, he had a nice opportunity to come back to only -1.

After 37.Rxa7?? which was a blunder, he played 37…Be2?? 38.Re7 (phew!), instead of 37…Qe3+! 38.Qf2 (38.Kf1 Bh3 or 38.Kh1 Bh3 wins the Nd2) 38…Qxf2+ 39.Kxf2 Rxh2+ and the Rd8 will come into play to win the Nd2, which would have taken him to -1.

1/4 FINAL : MVL – ARONIAN 14.5-12.5

In general, I think that the openings went well, especially with black, even if I had some difficulties with the closed Sicilian. Afterwards, Carlsen and especially Nakamura, took up these kind of variations against me.

Once again in this match, I couldn’t make any difference. In particular, I was three points up at one moment and I lost my last three black games of the 3′ segment, and quite stupidly so. Even if it is not forbidden to lose games against Aronian, when you are at +3, you are not allowed to finish at 50%!

This is the game that gave me the initial advantage in the 3’ segment, and it ended very nicely: 28.c5! (the main threat is 29.Rb6 followed by Qxb3+ winning a rook) 28…Qb4 29.Nxe5+! (the refutation!) 29…fxe5 30.Qxe5 Ra7 (in spite of the defending pieces returning, the Black King remains too exposed) 31.Rd4 Qb5 32.Qe6+ Kf8 33.Rf4+ Ke8 34.c6! (the most effective, threatening mate on g8) 34…Kd8 35.Qd6+ 1-0 (35…Ke8 36.c7 is lethal).

1/2 FINAL : MVL – CARLSEN 13-11

It was a very tense match! After two difficult first games where the positions didn’t really turn out the way I wanted, I had a little bit of help in the third one, which was also degenerating. Luckily, Magnus threw a large part of his advantage, and even ended up losing on time! That was the strong point that I was able to show in this match, playing fast and posing concrete problems almost every time.

After that, I managed to impose my play, and tried to have him slip on banana peels on just about every game, with a consequent success rate. However, I never managed to create a significant gap. Often, I was at +2, up to +4 in the Bullet. There, it should have been over, but I lost three in a row, even though they were tough battles. Luckily I managed to pull myself together for the very last decisive game, which I was happy to win 🙂 .

On the match’s physiognomy, I think the final result is quite logical, each of us having had our share of success.

I also want to point out that all games lasted very long. 24 games is really not much, it shows that all the games were hard-fought. Because even if I played fast, I often caught up on time at the end, either to conclude well or because the position had deteriorated.

What helped me a lot was that I quickly made a difference in the Bullet. So, even when he came back at high speed towards the end, I was still able to keep a minimal lead. The final 4-4 score in the Bullet segment seems justified to me, and if I had to choose, I would say that the turning point of the whole match was the last game of the 3′ segment.

Here I played 23.e6, which is a very tricky move after the normal 23…fxe6 24.Rg4. 24…Ne7?? is a blunder, but it’s so natural since you expect 25.Rxg7 Rxg7 26.Bxg7, and you’d rather have the Knight on e7 than on f8 or h8! Which explains why you miss the little tactic 25.Nxc5 Rxc5 26.Ba3 winning a piece. This is an example of the play based on tactical resources that I had decided to set up for this match.

FINAL: MVL – NAKAMURA 12.5-18.5

I was obviously very motivated for this final, with the idea to confirm my performance against Carlsen, even if I had to play again the next day, whereas the other semi-final had taken place 72 hours earlier.

I think the level was very high in this final match. There weren’t many mistakes, even if I started the match by dropping a Rook in one move! In fact, I always managed to come back on the score and I was quite happy with my play throughout. The only problem, but that’s always the danger in a 3-hour match, is to lose some games too easily. There are at least two or three of them, and that’s already a lot at this level. Because the games I win, I have to go and get them – because of his consistency – while he got some easy points. On the other hand, I was ultra resilient in some games, especially the last one in the 5’ segment, which I should have lost 50 times and which I finally won, allowing me to stay afloat.

The duel remained very close until the beginning of the Bullet, where I won the first two; good games though… Then he came back to +1, and I guess the turning point was the 6th Bullet:

I felt that I had a very good position. But with only 17 seconds on the clock, I looked at 34.Ne8, 34.Nf7+, 34.Re7 and 34.Bxg7+ which I finally chose. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to find the decisive 34.Re8! Rxe8 35.Bxg7+ (35.Nxe8 b1=Q 36.Bxg7+ Kh7 37.Qf7! was also an elegant win) 35…Kxg7 36.Qf7+ Kh8 37.Nxe8 Qc3 38.Nf6. Instead, I had to defend a very unplesant endgame, though objectively drawish, after 34.Bxg7+? Rxg7 35.Nxc8 Qxc8 36.Qb5 Qc7+ 37.g3 Qb7 38.Qe8+?! (38.Re8+ Rh7 39.Tb8! was an immediate draw) 38…Kh7 39.Rb1. With only one second of increment, I couldn’t resist Hikaru’s infernal manoeuvres; it’s not a criticism, I would have done the same thing 🙂 .

After having played Kg2-h2 for a dozen of consecutive moves while Hikaru was moving his heavy pieces without apparent goal, he finally played the tricky waiting move 55…Kg7, and after 56.Kh2?? (arrgh!) 36…Rxh4+.

Instead of equalizing, I found myself at -2, about 10 minutes from the end; too much of a handicap in front of such a specialist.

Now I want to confirm my progress in online chess, which I will soon have the opportunity to do with the second tournament of the Champions Chess Tour, starting just after Christmas (« Airthings Masters », from December 26th).

And I’m also looking forward to getting back to the « physical » chessboards, which will be the case in Wijk aan zee (Netherlands), where the Tata Steel starts on January 16th. Please note that I will be there from the 5th of January for a 10-day period of penance, in full accordance with the Dutch sanitary regulations 🙂 .

Maxime’s games :

Absol is a renowned Youtuber in France, whose particularity is to manage a main channel (Absol Videos, 407k subscribers), but also a secondary channel (Absol Human, 45k subscribers), mainly dedicated to chess games against different guests. A few weeks ago, Maxime went to visit him and played three games against. To spice things up, the French champion was having a certain handicap, as he just played without his Queen! Quite a challenge against a club level player, and not an absolute beginner…

If you want to watch the videos, it’s this way (in French):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOjt0l71BaY (Partie 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TV2iCqLn-4 (Partie 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTmAVCSVrwU (Partie 3)