Category: English

It was very arduously that I qualified for my 10th consecutive Grand Chess Tour, in 2025. It took until the final round of the last tournament for a final win (against world champion Ding Liren) to validate my ticket. It was all the more of a relief that this game ended a run of 25 consecutive draws in classical games, and even 29 in Grand Chess Tour tournaments! Not tasting victory for such a long time, especially when you’ve had quite a few opportunities that you’ve squandered, does get on your nerves!

Naturally, I’m still pleased with this new-found solidity, but now the only streak still running is a sweeter one, ie. the number of consecutive games without defeat, at 52!

A look back at the US leg of the Grand Chess Tour 2024, again in the temple of the Saint-Louis Chess Club. And a big bravo to Alireza for his new treble, after the one in 2022… Saint-Louis Rapid & Blitz, Sinquefield Cup and Grand Chess Tour 2024. Impressive!

Rapid & Blitz

Since 2014, I’ve had time to establish my habits in the Missouri city! I still have the same routines, I know when to get up, when to exercise, when and where to eat etc….

Having arrived 4 days before the start of the tournament, I had time to digest the jet lag and prepare for an extremely tough tournament, with all the members of the elite present (except Magnus). In this ultra-competitive context, players in poor form were heavily penalized in terms of scoring… Obviously, I’m thinking above all of Prag, who wasted quite a few winning positions – including one against me, by the way -.

As for me, I was in pretty good shape at the start, but then it turned out to be a bit more uncertain. In particular, I lost a game to Nepo in round 7 from a dominant position; this upset me a little for the end of the Rapid, even though I had a good finish thanks to my win over Dominguez in the last game (in a Berlin endgame!).

In the Blitz, on the other hand, it was much less convincing than in Zagreb (13/18 in Croatia, and 8/18 here, the comparison is quickly made!). I’m well aware, however, that blitz is by nature a little more random, especially at my very advanced age 😊. It’s also a question of « flow », of rhythm, and in Saint-Louis, I couldn’t find it, especially on Day 2, which was decisive. Admittedly, 1st place was starting to look a long way off, as Alireza had a very good first day. But I was still tied for second.

Unfortunately, I lost the first game against Hikaru (Nakamura) being a pawn up in the endgame, only to lose in R+B vs R against 10 moves before the 50-move rule!

It hurt, and after that I couldn’t come back. In any case, not enough to claim to have had a good day, especially after a final loss to Alireza. In the end, I finished shared 4-5 in the tournament, which wasn’t great and put me in a tricky situation ahead of the Sinquefield Cup, where I had to do better than Wesley So while keeping an eye on Nepo and especially Prag. This was the prerequisite for catching the overall third place of the circuit and qualifying for the Grand Chess Tour 2025.

Sinquefield Cup

I started with two uneventful games. Against Nepo with black, I played for one of the first times at the top level 1.e4 e5 without opting for the Petroff. It went well, and I was able to neutralize Ian in the opening. Then, a draw against Prag without too many waves, with some small regrets about my treatment of the Italian; but that’s the story of our chess-playing lives 😊.

Then came the first turning point against Alireza (Firoujza), who had made a flying start to the tournament, helped however by an extremely tense game against Fabiano, which he ended up winning in a mutual zeitnot.
The opening was a London system, which I had prepared a little in advance to diversify my options; this one was more aggressive involving a pawn sacrifice, and led to positions with few landmarks, which I can also appreciate. The treatment of the position was therefore extremely complex.

I’d seen the line where he missed the advantage with 21.h5! instead of his 21.Rxg4? gxf5, which swung the position in black’s favor. But I had seen without really understanding! Admittedly, I’d realized that the idea of transferring his Knight to d4 would give me the edge, for example 21.Nb3 gxf5 22.Nd4 Bh6. Except that if he starts with 21.h5! gxf5 22.h6 Bh8 23.h7+, my Bishop on h8 doesn’t come back to h6 and that’s a huge difference in evaluating the position. It may not seem like it at first glance, but it’s understandable at the analysis. Having said that, it’s so difficult that neither Alireza nor I have been able to do it…

As the game progressed, I found myself in a better position, but a completely irrational one. I knew it would require a lot of consolidation from black. I felt I was making the right moves, but without really knowing where I stood in terms of evaluation. At one point, when I had to give back control of the g-file, admittedly by fetching white’s h5-pawn, I felt I was starting to lose control as his Knights could still create threats, and his Rook on the g-file was quite unbearable.

The turning point came in this position: my idea was 36…Bxd4. But all of a sudden, I saw 37.Nxd5!? and 37…cxd5 38.Qxd5 Bg7 (only move) 39.Qf7 Qe5 (only move) 40.Qxh5+ Kg8 didn’t satisfy me; admittedly, the machine gives black the advantage, but I was far from convinced of that during the game! Then I calculated 37…Be6 38.Nf6+ Bxf6 39.Qxe6 Rg5 (only move) 40.Rxg5 Bxg5 41.Qxf5+ Kh6 42.Qe6+ (42.Qxe4? Qh7! with a winning Queen exchange) 42…Kg7 42.Qxe4 and stopped, completely forgetting 42…Qf7! followed by 43…Bh4 and my f-pawn will make the difference. So I went back to the diagrammed position and looked at the other options that seemed possible. 36…Qc8 didn’t appeal to me either and I finally opted for 36…Qb8, which is another good move which doesn’t spoil anything. After repeating the position once with 37.Qa4 Qc7 38.Qb3 Qb8 39.Qa4, despite my 40 minutes left and half-hour lead on the clock, I completely panicked and lost all objectivity. I didn’t see the simplest win which was 39…Rh2, forcing either a pitiful retreat like 40.Nd1, 40.Rf1, 40.Qc2, or 40.Cxd5 which can be superbly ignored with 40…Rxf2 and with the Queen on a4, white has no counterplay on my King. Instead, I foolishly repeated a third time with 39…Qc7…, a decision which was not understood by the commentators and which, I confess, does not correspond to any rational logic!

Against Abdusattorov, nothing to report; I was still upset by the previous game and didn’t get anything in the opening with white.

Against Fabiano (Caruana), just before the rest day, I came to my senses and played a pretty decent game. The balance was never really disturbed, even if at the end I started to get a bit ambitious. But I told myself that objectively I really didn’t have much, and besides, if I declined the draw after what I’d done against Alireza… 😊.

I then faced Gukesh, doubling black. Another Najdorf after the one against Fabiano, this time with 6.Bd3. I didn’t quite understand his idea in the opening, because I didn’t deviate from what I usually play, and he seemed unsure of what plan to adopt. This led to an extremely complicated middle game in which I sacrificed the a6 pawn, thinking that I’d certainly get some compensation tactically, in a position that remained very murky.

After 18.Bxa6, I rejected the sacrifice 18…bxa6 19.Bxe5 Bb5 20.Rf2 dxe5 21.Rxd8 Rexd8, which seemed insufficient for black. I preferred to play for positional compensations with
18…Nfd7 19.Bd3 Bh4
. Soon afterwards, he began to run out of time, and there were a few inaccuracies on both sides as the situation clarified in the center. Finally, Gukesh, who was already playing almost exclusively on the increment, decided to exchange Queens, which led to the following endgame:

Now it’s a race, and I don’t think he anticipated that I’d be fast too, with my Kingside pawns!

The next long sequence is almost forced. I looked for other options but couldn’t find any. 39…g5 40.a4 h5 41.a5 g4 42.hxg4?! (better was 42.a6! keeping the h-pawns as it set a diabolical trap for black! If I continue as in the game with 42…f3 43.gxf3 gxf3 44.Nc3 Rh2 45.Kg1 Bg3? [only 45…Rg2+ 46.Kh1 Bf2! can give hopes of survival in this line: 47.Rf1 Bd4 48.Rxf3 Rxc2 and Black hangs on] 46.a7 f2+ 47.Kf1 Rh1+ 48.Kg2 Rxc1 49.a8=Q+ Kg7 50.Qb7+ Kg6 51.Qxc6+ Kg5, the big nuance is 52.Kxg3! and white wins since, with the presence of the h3/h5 pawns, the threat 53.h4 mate is lethal!) 42…hxg4 43.a6 f3 44.gxf3 gxf3 45.Nc3 Rh2 46.Kg1 Bg3 (the simplest, and it’s now white who must find the way to a draw) 47.a7 (and not 47.Nd1 Te2!) 47…f2+ 48.Kf1 Rh1+ 49.Kg2 Rxc1 50.a8=Q+ Kg7 51.Qb7+ Kg6 52.Qxc6+ Kg5 and now that 53.Kxg3? f1=Q is no longer possible since the possibility of h4 mate is missing and, moreover, that white’s Queen has no check available, Gukesh is obliged to find a series of only moves to escape. 53.Qc4 Rg1+ 54.Kh3! (and especially not 54.Kf3? Rh4!) 54…f1=Q+ 55.Qxf1 Rxf1 56.Kxg3 Rc1

Here Gukesh found the easiest way to draw, giving up his two Queenside pawns to set a fortress with the Knight on d3. 57.Kf3! Rxc2 58.Nd1 Rd2 59.Nf2! (and not 59.Ne3? which would not be a fortress, because after 59…Rxb2, white would not be able to prevent the arrival of black’s King on the key-square f4) 59…Rxb2 60.Nd3 Rb5 61.Ke3 Kg4 62.Ke2 and white has the perfect defensive setup.

An excellent defensive performance from Gukesh, especially with so little time on the clock.

Then, against Anish (Giri) with white, I was neutralized in the infamous Berlin endgame, before creating difficulties on my own in the penultimate round against Wesley (So), even though it ended in another point split.

Finally, against Ding in the last round, I knew my mission, because in the meantime Wesley, who was half a point ahead, had lost to Abdusattorov. We were therefore tied and I had to do better than him to overtake him in the final Grand Chess Tour ranking and take that most wanted qualifying place for 2025. To achieve my mission, I was white against the world champion, while he was black against Gukesh. I knew I’d have to keep a complicated position, especially as Ding had lost two days earlier to Alireza in just such a position. Hence the choice of a specific preparation against the Spanish concocted with my trainer, and the emphasis on time management too.

It worked beyond my expectations because Ding quickly got mixed up with 19…Ng6? which is certainly a move worth taking into consideration, but so risky given the position. You can feel that if white is given one or two tempi, it will quickly become catastrophic for black. I think my move 20.Qe1! refutes his play. If 20…Nxh4 21.f4! Ng6 22.f5 h4 23.Bh2 and black’s position is on the verge of implosion. 20…c4!? was the only way to try and fish in troubled waters, but after his choice of 20…Kf8? 21.f3, he was never able to put up any real resistance, all the more so as he seemed a little elsewhere.

Looking ahead to Ding’s World Championship match against Gukesh on November 25, he has a few positives to report. At the World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships in Astana in August, his level of play was quite encouraging, and I think the fact that he played as part of a team helped him. Incidentally, it’ll be interesting to see him play at the Olympiads in Budapest. But in this type of tournament like the Sinquefield Cup, everyone’s in it for the long haul, with the knife between their teeth. And when he had a promising position, he didn’t push it to the limit. Inevitably, this plays tricks when you finally have to start defending. At the end of the tournament, first against Alireza and then against me, you couls feel he was slipping back into his old ways. He still has a few months and a lot of preparation to do, but time is running out to get back to the Ding « prime » we once knew and miss! If the match was to take place tomorrow, Gukesh would be the clear favorite. But let’s wait a little, because things can change very quickly: there are almost 3 months to go, there are other tournaments to be played, but it’s true that the onus is on Ding and his team to find solutions to get him back on track.

With this qualification for the Grand Chess Tour 2025, my year’s major objective has been achieved. But there are a few other deadlines till the end of the year. The first is the Olympics, where I’ll be making my return to the French team. We’ve got a team that’s certainly missing Alireza, but it’s still looking good. We’re definitely going to try to do something big! Next on the agenda is the final tournament of the Champions Chess Tour, even though I’m already virtually qualified for the live finals in December.

October also sees the second edition of the Global Chess League in London, followed by the WR Masters Cup, also in the British capital.

Maxime’s rapid games:

Maxime’s blitz games:

Maxime’s Sinquefield games:

Having just returned from the USA on August 31, Maxime headed back to Vichy. The CREPS (Center for resources, expertise and sports performance) in this town in central France was hosting the French teams for a training camp prior to the Budapest Olympiads. The highly reputed Vichy CREPS is regularly chosen by athletes and international teams before major competitions. The performance support staff therefore looked after the 10 players and 2 captains for 5 days. The program consisted of sessions focusing on sport, recovery and sleep, based on typical, fairly fast-paced days. Without forgetting to leave a little time for purely chess preparation, i.e. 3 or 4 hours a day. It’s a highly satisfactory initiative, which deserves to be put on a long-term footing.

Before commenting on these July tournaments, I’d like to take a look back at the first half of 2024 as a whole, during which I played no classical tournament, only a few isolated games in team competitions, as in the German league, the Austrian league and of course in the French Top 16.

Even though Rapid and online tournaments went well at times (including winning Division 2 of the Champions Chess Tour in May), I still had a lot of questions before the start of this 2024 Grand Chess Tour, not least because I hadn’t played against the world’s elite in the classical chess for quite some time…

BUCHAREST

Half of the participants in the Romanian capital were familiar faces, but the other half were not, since for the first time in ages two players were included against whom I had never played a classical game: Abdusattorov and Gukesh! That leaves Erigaisi as the only player left in the world’s Top 20!

After two uneventful draws against Nepo and Prag, I was white against Alireza (Firouzja), who this time opted for the Berlin endgame. After Black showed very deep preparation, we ended up in a rather odd position to play and evaluate. It’s also complicated with the new rate of play (2h KO + 30”/move), where you have all the time in the world as there is no intermediate control! As a result, there were certainly fewer errors in the middlegames, and the overall chess quality was clearly better.

But this game is the exception that proves the rule!

Here, I found the difficult move 23.Re1, avoiding 23.c3 f5 24.Bg5 (24.g5? Bb3!) 24…Bxg5 25.Nxg5 Bb3 26.Re1 fxg4 27.hxg4 Rbg6 28.f4 h6. After 23…f5 24.g5, Alireza made a big miscalculation 24…Ba2?! 25.Kf4 Rxb2? as he missed 26.c4! Rxd2 27.Nxd2 a4 28.Ra1 Bb3 29.Nxb3 axb3 30.Rb1 and the King’s activity gives white a winning endgame.

Nevertheless, the technical conversion of the advantage wasn’t that simple, as there’s still a lot of work to be done to get the pawns moving. In this critical position, Alireza played his practical card with 35….b5!?. My horrible answer 36.cxb5? (36.Kg4 Rh1 37.f4 fit the bill perfectly) is explained by the fact that after 36…c4 37.Rb4 Rxf3+, my basic idea was 38.Ke6, but then there’s 38…cxb5 39.Rxb5 Rb3! (the defense I’d forgotten!), which draws on the spot. Despite this crucial oversight, I felt I could still push with 38.Ke4 Rxa3 39.bxc6, but he defended the Rook endgame after 39…Bc7! very well and saved the half-point. A cruel disappointment!

The next round, with black against Abdussatorov, I was surprised that he persisted in playing the 6.Qd3 line against the Najdorf. I managed the opening quite well, finding two really difficult moves (11…Qc8 and 12…h5). I was even much better because he let me take the e4 pawn under very favorable circumstances.

It was when I’d done most of the work that I played 16….Be7?! little too quickly. But it wasn’t easy to play 16…d5! (which is the best move) because there would have been more complications and I just thought I could consolidate my extra pawn. But it’s true that after
17.c4, strangely enough, white’s compensation for the pawn is quite huge. In the end, after
17…Rb8 18.Bd2 0-0 19.Nc3, I should have simply sacrificed the exchange with 19…Rxb4 20.Nd5 Nxd5 21.cxd5 Bb5 22.Bxb4 Bxe2. Instead, I opted for 19…Nb6 20.Rc1 Bb7, giving him the opportunity (which I’d anticipated though!) to bring the Knight to e3 with 21.Nd1! after which I think white would have taken the advantage. Fortunately, he chose 21.Qd3
and I jumped at the chance to give up the Queen with 21…Qc6!.

22.Bf3 Qxc4 23.Nd5 Bxd5 24.Rxc4 Bxc4 obtaining a position that seemed almost better for black. Indeed it is, in practice anyway, but after 25.Qc2 g6 26.Be3 Bb5, he found a rather sumptuous defence sequence with 27.Bxb6! Rxb6 28.Ne6! Rfb8 29.Nc7! Rg7 30.Nd5; white gives the h4-pawn, but doesn’t care. He won’t take the d6-pawn and will use his Queen to come to c7 and his Bishop to d5 to create a fortress. My pieces can’t move and we agreed to a draw a bit later! All in all, it was a good game. It somewhat echoes the one against Alireza, in the sense that it was also a missed opportunity for me, although it was much more difficult here.

Five more draws later, we can stop at the final result, 9 draws, which I know doesn’t sound dreamy 😊. I’m still on a long (ongoing) run of 17 consecutive draws in classical games. On the plus side, I’m not losing and I’m solid. On the downside, I’m also missing chances. We’ll have to come up with something sharper at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis (Usa) in August.

But overall, in terms of content, it’s much more encouraging, especially as I’ve had several opportunities to win games.

I’m also pleased that I wasn’t in danger in any of the games. So I’d say the balance sheet is pretty positive, even if it’s not quite what I’d hoped for (at least +1).

To be confirmed in Saint-Louis!

The Grand Chess Tour caravan made its way from Bucharest to the Rapid & Blitz in Zagreb. Ironically, and despite all geographical logic, our flight between the two capitals had a stopover in… Paris!

Zagreb Rapid

In Rapid chess, I was a little more confident as I’d been playing pretty well recently. I won the Tata Steel India and the last Champions Chess Tour tournament in September 2023, I was 2^nd at the Rapid & blitz in St-Louis in December, and I’ve also won online tournaments etc… Here in Zagreb, I was able to show once again that I’m always alert when the pace quickens 😊

In the very first round, with black against Aronian, I used an old preparation in a 3.f3
Grünfeld. I couldn’t remember all the details, but it made for an extremely unbalanced position; I think we were both happy!

Here, I should have played 21…Rfe8, in order to take back with the f-pawn on g6. I didn’t want to forget to attack on the Queenside and I thought I’d have time for 21…a5… But after 22.hxg6, I realized that 22…fxg6 would allow 23.Ne6. Of course, I can’t take back with the h-pawn either, because there’s 23.f4! and then 24.Tdh3 and I’m checkmated. So 22…Qxg6 isn’t ideal, but it’s forced!

What has been a constant in the Rapid tournament, but even more glaring in this game, was my time advantage: I’ve been able to get 10, even 15 minutes ahead in many of the games.

Here, Levon navigated a little too slowly through the complications, but in terms of position, it was still very, very hot!

Here, I took 2 minutes to validate the choice of 27…Bf1, having in mind the whole variation 28.Be3 Bxe3 29.Rxe3 Nc4 30.Re2 Ne5 31.Rexg2 Bxg2 32.Rxg2 Ng4, which allowed me to play this series of moves extremely quickly!

Obviously, after 33.Nd7? (33.Nf5! still left a very nebulous position) there’s that little regret of not seeing 33…Ne3! which was a very nice move (34.Rxg6+ fxg6 followed by 35…Rf1 which wins instantly).

That said, he only had 20 seconds left, and I had 10 minutes! I thought I’d be able to make the difference, and indeed I did, thanks to one or two smart moves at the end.

Here, I took 2 minutes to validate the choice of 27…Bf1, having in mind the whole variation 28.Be3 Bxe3 29.Rxe3 Nc4 30.Re2 Ne5 31.Rexg2 Bxg2 32.Rxg2 Ng4, which allowed me to play this series of moves extremely quickly!

Obviously, after 33.Nd7? (33.Nf5! still left a very nebulous position) there’s that little regret of not seeing 33…Ne3! which was a very nice move (34.Rxg6+ fxg6 followed by 35…Rf1 which wins instantly).

That said, he only had 20 seconds left, and I had 10 minutes! I thought I’d be able to make the difference, and indeed I did, thanks to one or two smart moves at the end.

I thought it was a bit strange that he hadn’t taken on a3 earlier. But here I thought it was really time to play 23…bxa3 24.Nf5 Rg8 25.Nd6 Ra7 for example, and after 26.Qxa3 I have clear compensations, but it’s probably close to a draw. After 23…Rg8 24.Qf3, he was now obliged to find difficult moves, like 24…Qf8 or the improbable 24…f5! to stay in the game, which he didn’t manage to do. After 24…Qd8? 25.axb4 Rb8 26.Rd1 Qe7?! (26…Qf8 27.Qxf6+ Qg7 was a lesser evil) 27.Nf5 I gained a lot of tempi on black’s pieces and a very clear advantage.

I always had ideas with h4-h5 in mind, especially here 29.h4 Qxb4 30.h5 Rh6? 31.Nf5! Qxc5+ 32.Kh2 Qf8 33.Rd7 and the way black is tied up is very photogenic! But in this variation 30…Rg7! 31.Qxf6 Qxc5 32.h6 Qxe3+ 33.Kh1 Qg5 saves the day, and that’s why I played 29.Nd5; obviously with such a Knight, I knew it was going to go well 😊.

It took me a long time to find the win, because although I quickly saw the position after
36.Kf2! Rxc5 37.Rxc5 Qxc5 38.Qd7, for a long time I had the impression that 38…f5
was a draw. Until I realized that the very pretty 39.Qd8+ Rg7 40.Ke2! would unpin the Knight, renew the mating threats, and leave black defenseless! (but especially not 40.Qg5+? Rg6! 41.hxg6 f4, which makes a draw).

So I arrived on the second day with a score of 2.5/3 and a good deal of certainty, and then… crash!

Against Gukesh with white, in a game that went extremely well for quite a long time, (huge time advantage and a position that seemed completely overwhelming), I failed to capitalize. Not only did I squander my advantage, but I also blundered and was trivially mated!

The advantage was already gone and I had to make do with 43.Rf1. Instead, despite my 2 minutes against a handful of seconds, I played the terrible 43.Rh1??. For the record, I had calculated from a distance 43…Qg4? 44.Rxh6+ gxh6 45.Qd7, which wins for white. But
43…Qf3+ was quite a cold shower! Inevitably, this shock had a bit of an impact on the following games, in which I wasn’t really able to get back into the swing of things.

On the last two days of Rapid, I played at a much more uneven level than on the first day. I did, however, perform a few small feats of defense to save quite a couple of half-points 😊. And I had a good game with white against Vidit to my credit; for the record, in an old line I’d played 12 years ago against Étienne Bacrot (1.c4 e6 2.e4 d5). I knew that it didn’t promise any advantage, but that it was a little more pleasant for white to play, and that it was easy to make a mistake. And that’s exactly what happened!

Black wasn’t precise enough in the opening, I’ve already managed to put all my pieces on the right squares and white is clearly better after 18.c4!. This time, the conversion phase went well after 18…Nxd2 19.cxd5 Nxb3 20.Qxb3. There’s not much he can do, sometimes there’s d6, sometimes there’s dxc6, Nxf7…. Besides, he had to think for a long time because it was really hard for black to play. Vidit only made things worse with the sequence 20…Bg6?! 21.Re3! Rb8, and the tactical conclusion was quite nice, 22.dxc6 bxc6 23.Nxc6!; white remains a central passed pawn up, and winning is now just a matter of technique.

I finished the Rapid tournament with 5/9, in ambush before the two days of blitz.

Zagreb Blitz

My blitz tournament was good, even very good, as I scored 6.5/9 each day. In terms of content, I played some very good games, and I only have one small regret: my two games against Nepo, which were my only defeats in the 18 rounds…

However, there’s always room for improvement, and I deplore the occasional blunder or oversight, even though I know it’s inevitable, especially as you get older 😊. But I’ve made up for it with a much more energetic play on many occasions…

Overall, I’m satisfied with this performance and with my shared 2^nd in Zagreb. Fabiano (Caruana) was unstoppable from start to finish, and fully deserved his victory. My last chance to compete was in the last round of the Rapid against him, but I was non-existent in that game, which allowed him to take off a little more.
Well done to him! What’s more, he had won Bucharest just before, so he continues his total domination of the Grand Chess Tour stages. He’s leaving us the crumbs, but I’m going to try to get a little more in Saint-Louis 😊.

CHAMPIONS CHESS TOUR, CrunchLabs Masters

On my return from Zagreb, I had 3 days’ respite before moving on to the third tournament of the 2024 Champions Chess Tour, where I was playing in Division 1 following my Division 2 victory in May. The starting line-up was truly sumptuous, with Carlsen, Caruana, Nepo, Firouzja, So, Duda, Andreikin and myself!

In my first match against Andreikin, it was the third game that was decisive. I decided to avoid the Sicilian Kalashnikov of the first game, which had gone badly for me I lost with white). I chose the line 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3, which was a little more positional and where I knew a number of details, both from white and black’s side.

The key moment was when he decided to castle long, which surprised me enormously because it’s very easy for me to create an initiative on the Queenside. Even if his pieces are in the center, because of the d6 pawn and the blocked d-file, they can’t easily get back to defense. After 15…0-0-0 16.b4, he can’t really open up, hence 16…Qg4 17.Rb1 (but not immediately 17.Qb2? h4! and black is faster) 17…e4 and now 18.Qb2!. The attack is too strong even if I wasn’t necessarily very clean afterwards.

I also won game 4 and following this 2.5-1.5 victory over Andreikin, I met Carlsen in the semi finals.

After losing the first game, I immediately levelled the score with a performance that earned me the prize for « best game of the tournament »! I played an anti-Marshall, even though I knew that Magnus excels in this type of position. It’s true that it’s very hard to beat him in this opening. It was his former second Laurent Fressinet who recently gave me this stat; in classical play, Carlsen hasn’t lost a Spanish with black since June 2015, against Anand!

Here I think I took a slight edge with the energetic 20.d4! Bf8 (20…cxd4 21.cxd4 Nxd4 22.N3xd4 exd4 23.Bf4 with the idea 24.e5 or 24.Qxd4) and here I had to choose between 21.d5 and 21.dxc5. I decided to have the long-term center advantage rather than the space advantage. I felt that I’d always be at least a little better after the exchange, so it was a practical decision, especially as he already had very little time left, 4 minutes 30. In these situations, it’s good to have long-term pressure.

The critical moment! Here, I was looking at 26…f5 27.Qf3 f4 when he played 26…Qc8?, a move I wasn’t particularly expecting, and which would have been excellent without my reply! After 27.Qxc8 Nxc8 (otherwise, fork on b6), the manoeuvre 28.Bd8! Nc6 29.Bc7 Rb7 30.Nc4 immediately caught my eye. I have complete control of the Queenside, which I didn’t necessarily optimize in the following moves. Clearly, I should have! I felt I should have hit harder, but at the same time I had this more conservative intuition which told me not to try and force matters, but rather use the fact that his time pressure was a real problem.

But it was a bit risky and I almost paid for it because here, if he had played 41…g6! followed by 42…Bh6, I wasn’t at all sure I could progress! Fortunately, he preferred 41…Rd7? perhaps anticipating 42.Kd2. Except that now, with the Nd6 pinned, I was able to pull out all the stops with 42.f4! exf4 43.gxf4 Rb7? (43…g6 was the only move to avoid going under straight away) 44.f5+ Kf7 45.e5! and black’s position collapsed.

After two more draws, I managed to win the Armageddon, an exercise in which Magnus nevertheless has breathtaking statistics!

In the Franco-French final against Alireza (Firouzja), I’d single out the first game of the match…

I wasn’t necessarily expecting 6.Rg1 against my Najdorf, but I’d been looking at this line a bit recently, especially after my game against Jordan Van Foreest in the Top 16; I wanted to find alternatives to surprise my opponents. And so did I, even if I didn’t negotiate the beginning of the game very well, because it’s hard to remember all the details! After 6…g6 7.g4 Bg7 8.Be2,

I remembered planning this new idea 8…h5, but during the game I started to get scared when I saw the « funny » variation 9.gxh5 Nxh5 10.Bxh5 Rxh5? 11.Qxh5! gxh5 12.Rxg7; I felt it could go very wrong… Fortunately, I realized that there was 10…Bxd4! 11.Qxd4 Rxh5 which more or less would stabilize the position. Nevertheless, Alireza surprised me a lot by playing 10.h3?.

But here I reacted too quickly. After 10…hxg4 11.hxg4, I played the natural move in this position, 11…Nc6?. Obviously, a few seconds later, it jumped out at me; but what would he have done after 11…Nxg4 ?. 12.Bxg4 Bxg4 13.Qxg4 Bxd4 or 13.Txg4 Th1+. I barely had time to say to myself « what an idiot to have missed that! » that Alireza unleashed 12.Be3?.I realized that 12…Nxg4? 13.Bxg4 Bxg4 14.Nxc6 didn’t work anymore, but I quickly thought of 12…Bxg4!… I calculated and checked everything, because there are quite a few variations. Notably 13.Bxg4 Nxg4 14.Qxg4 Nxd4 15.0-0-0 Nc6 16.Nd5, which was actually the best option for white. He gives away a pawn and I had to be sure that the compensation wouldn’t be too great, which wasn’t the case. But Alireza, despite much thought, had completely missed the point. So he played 13.Nxc6, which seemed to me to be a poor practical decision, since after 13…Bxe2 14.Nxd8 Bxd1 15.Nxf7 Kxf7 16.Rxd1, the endgame looks at least fine for black. I continued with 16…Nd7?! because I didn’t want to allow 16…Rac8 17.e5!? dxe5 18.Kd2 and 19.Kc1, but the computer disagrees!

Here, he definitely went down after 28.Nb2? Rh8 29.Rf1 Rh2+ 30.Kd1 g5! 31.Nd3 Nxd3 32.Rxd3 g4 0-1. The machine indicates that white could have held in the diagrammed position by preventing penetration on the h-file at the cost of a pawn, after 28.Nf2! Rcf8 29.Rh1 Rxf3 30.Rxf3 Rxf3 31.Nd3, then defending the Rook endgame thanks to black’s doubled e-pawns. From a human point of view, I think this is untraceable, and in any case impossible to defend in this format, even if it’s a computer 0.00!

I eventually won this match 2.5-0.5, then waited to see who would emerge from the losers’ bracket. And it was Alireza who once again presented himself to me, having eliminated Nepo, who had himself previously disposed of Carlsen.

In this Grand Final, I still got two lives, while Alireza had to win two matches to come out on top. But in the end there was only one, after 4 tumultuous draws and an even more tense Armageddon, which I finally won with white – and here it is!

I had this position from the Berlin endgame in my files, and the right move here is
19.f4!. It’s true that, at one time, it was thought that white shouldn’t venture into the structures arising from 19…gxf3 20.Nxf3. But things change, and in recent years we’ve realized that this is not only completely playable, but even quite dangerous for black! For example, I played this type of position against Grischuk at the Candidates 2020. And if black doesn’t take en passant, like Alireza, the idea is obviously to gain space and always have f5 in sight. After 19…Nf5 20.Nf1 Ra6 (the best; 20…Nxh4 21.Ng3! with the idea 22.Ne3 and f5, and if 21…Nf5? 22.Nxf5 Bxf5 23.e6! loses material) 21.g3 (21.Kf2 was more precise
) 21…Nd4 22.Nd2 c6 23.Ne3, I think he could equalize by simply playing 23…Be7 and 24…Rd8 (instead of 23…Rb6?!).

In this position, where I regained control after two inaccurate moves from black, I made a bit of the same mistake as in my primed game against Magnus 😊. I wanted to use the fact that he was in time trouble to keep the tension and keep the pieces on the board, especially as we were playing an Armageddon with no increment at all! So I chose 28.Nc2?. But this is a rather ridiculous move because I could simply have exchanged on f5 and, for example, brought my King back to e3 and then the Rooks on the d-file. He’d be forced to waste time with his Rooks, and at some point I’d manage to penetrate to the Kingside via a timely Nd6. What’s more, there’s probably something even more precise than 28.Nxf5; I can also wait for him to exchange on e3, for example with the little move 28.Rb2, and save even more time that way. But in any case, 28.Nc2? was completely off the mark, which I could have paid for dearly, as he managed to liquidate into an objectively defensible endgame.

Here, I knew that in the event of 36…Rd8? 37.Rxd8 Kxd8 38.Ke4 Ke7 39.f5 followed by Kf4-g5, despite the opposite-colored bishops, black would probably lose. At least, that’s what I thought during the game. After 36…Re8, I proceeded by elimination. He’s threatening 37…f5! and it looks a lot like a fortress, so definitely not 37.Ke4?. Which left me no choice but to play 37.f5 myself! I had a feeling it probably wouldn’t be enough objectively, but at least I could cause problems with every move after 37…Bxf5 38.Kf4. Should he consolidate with 38…Bg6 or counter-attack the Queenside with 38…Bc2 ? It turns out that both are ok, and he chose the second option. But he only had 1’41” left (compared to over 4’ for me!). And after 39.Rf6, another dilemma: 39…Bxb3 or 39…Re7,
the move finally chosen. And again after 40.Kg5 Bxb3 41.Kxh5, should he take a4 or c4? So many difficult and time-consuming decisions!

He now had just 53 seconds left (I remind you, with no increments 😊), and the task was no longer surmountable, even though the machine shows that after the only move 48…Rg8!, black retains excellent chances of a draw. The reason is that if 49.h6 Rg4+! 50.Kf3 Rg8, white can’t play 51.h7? Rh8 52.Rh6, because black now has 52…Bf5 since white’s King is no longer on f4! In the game, Alireza played 48…c5? 49.h6 Rh8 50.Bxc5 Kc6 51.Bd6 Kd5 52.g4 Ra8 53.h7 Rh8 54.Rh6 Kc4 (only 13” left, but it’s now as hopeless on the board as it is on the clock!) 55.Kg5 Kb3 56.Kf6 Bxg4 57.Kg7 1-0.

Delighted to win this 3rd Champions Chess Tour tournament! I’ll be playing in Division 1 again for the last tournament in September, and I’m already assured of being one of the 8 who’ll be competing in the live final in December.

In the meantime, I’ll be up for the Speed Chess Championship, with a first match on July 31st against Hans Niemann, and the prospect of the face-to-face finals in September in Paris!

From August 12, I’ll be in the USA for the American tour, Rapid & Blitz in St Louis and then the Sinquefield Cup! The two tournaments will take place one after another, with my aim being to finish in the top 3 of the circuit and qualify for next year.

I hope to continue to show the level of play I reached at the beginning of the summer, which answered the doubts that had been legitimately raised over the last year or two. I’m still capable of raising my game, and quite consistently.

To be confirmed though…

Maxime’s games in Bucharest:

Maxime’s games in Zagreb (rapid):

Maxime’s games in Zagreb (blitz):

Maxime’s games in the Crunchlabs Master:

A few weeks ago, Maxime recorded (in French!) a very long interview for César Mourot’s podcast:. It’s an opportunity to go really in-depth on a number of topics, as the exchange lasts over 2 hours! For those who don’t have the time, a detailed thematic summary takes you straight to the subjects of particular interest.

After more than a month without any competition, I took part in the second Champions Chess Tour online tournament, from May 8 to 14. The formula is a little complex: after a preliminary round in the form of an open (the « Play In »), the best players have access to a second day devoted to « Division Placement », which divides players into D1, D2 and D3. Thereafter, each Division is contested by direct confrontation, but with the new principle of a Winners’ Bracket and a Losers’ Bracket, allowing all players to have a second life.

I played well in the Play In, finishing just behind Caruana, but I completely missed out on the Division Placement, and had to settle for competing in Division 2. That said, with the presence of players like Caruana, So, Aronian, Dominguez, to name but a few, this second Division looked appealing!

I’m all the more satisfied to have won it in the end, after successively beating Van Foreest, Martinez, Dubov, Oparin and So, as it offers me direct qualification for Division 1 of the third and penultimate tournament, in July.

Over the eight days of play, I’ve had a lot of long games, and I’m going to take this opportunity to look back on a number of interesting endings.

MVL-Vokhidov, Play-In Round 4 : 1/2

In one of the games of the preliminary Open, I still managed to establish a fortress and survive, although I had to give away my Queen in the process.

Here, my opponent has just given check on e4; panic-stricken and running out of time, I replied 68.Kh2??.The problem with this move is that, after 68…Kg4, I can’t play 69.Rf4+? Qxf4! 70.gxf4 Kxh4 71.f5 gxf5 since black’s King takes the opposition! So the only move was 68.Kg1! which is a bit paradoxical because it allows 68…Kg4, but now there would be 69.Rf4+ Qxf4 70.gxf4 Kxh4 71.f5 gxf5 72.Kf2 recovering the opposition. And if not, on the next move I’ll be able to play Rf4 again and keep the fortress, knowing that if Black plays …g5, hxg5 Kxg5 at some point, with the Rook on f4 and the pawn on g3, it’s a well-known drawn position, even if it’s a little less easy than with the pawn on g2 and the Rook on f3.

In the end, my opponent missed the win and let me collect the half-point.

Van Foreest-MVL, round of 16 game 2: 1-0

I’d won the first game. I wanted to finish the 4-game match at once and I made a few decisions that were a little too risky. I tried to remain active while not trading too many pieces, but I ended up paying dearly for it in an endgame where I was just slightly worse.

Everything crystallized in this position. We were running out of time, and the endgame was a bit of a pain to defend. Here I had the choice between 54…Kg7 and 54…Kg6. The logical move is 54…Kg7, but I wanted to play 54…Kg6 to have my King in support of the h-pawn. The problem is that after 54…Kg6? there’s the move I missed 55.Re3! which is also very classical. Now the e-pawn goes to Queen because I can’t bring my King back to f8; I lost the game a few moves later.

MVL-Van Foreest, round of 16 Armaggedon : 1-0

A Knight’s endgame rather difficult to win for white. I put the pressure on as best I could, but Jorden had really defended well up to this point. The number of pawns is drastically reduced, especially as he’s going to exchange one more by force. So we’re virtually down to only 2 pawns each… But I kept coming up with ideas, starting with 58.Ke3!?; he can’t take on d5 right away, because he’d lose the f6-pawn, or the pawn endgame. But he played well again: 58…Kd6 59.dxc6 Kxc6. Here, the logical move would be 60.Kc4 to play b5 of course, but I thought I’d fish in troubled waters instead, choosing 60.Ke4 Kb5 61.Kd5 Kh3 62.Kf3 Kc4. Here, I first checked 63.Kg2 obviously, but 63…Kxd5 63.Kxh3 Kc4 and black is on time, tempo-wise. But there was still one last trap, which I’d calculated in advance anyway, so as not to give him time to figure it out! 63.Kxf6 and 63…Kxb4? loses after the pretty 64.Kh5! trapping the Knight. Jorden resigned after 64…Kg1 (64…Kc5 65.Kg2 Nf4+ 66.Nxf4 exf4 67.Kf3 Kd6 68. Kxf4 Ke6 69.Kg5 winning the opposition) 65.Kf2 Nh3+ 66.Kg2 1-0.

Instead of taking the b4-pawn, 63…Nf4! was the only move, but frankly after 64.Ke4, you’d think that the b-pawn could now be defended (since 64…Kxb4? 65.Nd5+), and with very little time on the clock, you’d tend to stop there. However, this was the right line to escape, because here 64…Nd3 65.Kd5 Nf2+ 66.Kf3 Nxg4 gets the draw!

Mvl-Dubov, ½ final game 1 : 1-0

After overcoming the Martinez obstacle in the ¼ final in a tense match, I faced Dubov.

I was a pawn up from the start of the endgame. My Knight is worth his Bishop and my King is supporting the pawn, but it feels like a draw with all the pawns on the same wing. I had some time to think, but I still played fast to keep the pressure on; I thought it would be more useful here than trying to find a win that didn’t yet exist 😊. At first, I looked at 46.Nd4 f4 47.Ne2 to keep the g-pawn, but I saw 47…f3 followed by 48…Bxg3. I then thought of 46.Ng7!? f4 47.Nh5 fxg3 48.fxg3. Here, I suspect it’s still a draw, but he’s going to follow the wrong plan; 48…Kd6 49.Kd4 Ba7+ 50.Ke4 Bf2 (Dubov must have thought I was in zugzwang and would lose a pawn) 51.Ng7 (I must say I hadn’t seen this resource in advance 😊) 51…Be1? (not 51…Kd7? either because of 52.Nf5 followed by 53.Kf4xg4. In fact, Black didn’t defend in the most precise way and was therefore forced here to find a difficult series of only moves. 51…Ke7! 52.Nf5+ [52.Kf4 Bxg3+!] 52…Kf6 53.Kf4 [53.d6 Ke6 54.Kf4 Be1! 55.Kxg4 Bd2 zugzwang, is an elegant way to draw] 53…Bb6 only square! 54.Kxg4 [54.d6 Ke6 55.Kxg4 Bf2 only one square! 56.Kf4 Be1 57.g4 Bd2+ 58.Ke4 Bc1 59.Kd4 Ba3 and white makes no further progress. Note that in this line, black’s last five Bishop moves are only moves] 54…Ke5 55.d6 Bd8! with an aesthetically pleasing mirror zugzwang [56.d7 Ke6]. Obviously, all this can hardly be found with a few dozen seconds on the clock) 52.Nf5+ (my Knight now protects g3 and also allows black’s King to be cut off from the d5 pawn) 52…Kc5 53.Ke5 and win a few moves later, the King accompanying the d-pawn while the Knight went to h5 to protect g3 while never being attacked by the opponent’s King.

Dubov-MVL, ½ final game 2 : 1/2

An opposite-colored Bishops endgame in which I was in great difficulty. Fortunately, I had succeeded in forcing his pawns on white squares by pushing mine on the Kingside, anticipating a possible counterplay. In these positions with two passed pawns, if I don’t have a target in his camp, white’s King is bound to infiltrate somehow, and one of the passed pawns will escape. Here, all my counterplay is based on the fact that I can attack the g2-pawn with my Bishop, while controlling the a6-square. However, the machine indicates that white could win by playing 37.Ke3! with the idea 38.f4. His mistake 37.Kc5? is a funny moment, because after 37…Bf1 38.e6+ Ke7 (I didn’t want 38…Kxe6 39.Bd8, but it turns out that 39…Kd7! 40.Bxg5 Bxg2 still works), we get a position where I can’t take the g2-pawn because the a-pawn goes to Queen; but as soon as his King moves, either he takes c6, in which case I now take g2 and the long diagonal is open, or he plays Kb6 and I reply …c5; he’ll then have to take c5 (or play a6, whatever) and I take g2 then f3 and after that, I have my own passed pawns on the Kingside, and it could quickly get out of hand for white! So he finds himself in a situation where he’s forced to accept the draw by status quo; 39.Bc7 f4 40.Be5 (40.Kb6 c5!) 40…Kxe6 and nobody does anything.

Dubov-MVL, 1/2 final game 4: 1-0

This was a game of great adventures, in which I was under huge pressure most of the time, and so missed a few wins in the process. But then, thanks to a good defense with very little time at the start of the endgame, I avoided forced wins for him and managed to reposition my pieces somewhat miraculously. Inevitably, there were still a few reciprocal errors and in the end, we found ourselves in an extremely difficult Rook endgame, which was probably losing for me though. But with only 5 seconds for him too, he navigated badly and we reached this objectively drawn position…

Instead of repeating the position a second time with 82…Rc4+, I suddenly remembered that I had my g and h pawns, so it looked easier to bring my King back with 82…Kf6…After 83.b7 Rxb7 84.Kxb7+ Kf5, « I’ll support the pawn advance, white’s King is too far away », I thought. True, except for the cold shower 83.Kc5! and I can’t move my Rook to b1 because there’s 84.b7 with check, then 85.Rb6. So I’m forced to sacrifice my Rook right away with 83…Rxb6 84.Rxb6+ Kf5 but now 85.Kd4 and white’s King returns. I still tried 85…Kf4 86.Rxg6 (86.Kd3 Kf3 87.Rf6+ was even simpler) 86…h4 but 87.Rh6 Kg3 88.Ke3 h3 89.Rg6+ also wins by one tempo, but that’s all it takes in chess!

Dubov-MVL, ½ final Armaggedon : 1/2

In the Armageddon I found myself in dire straits again in the opening, the same one as in the second game. For the record, I once again made the wrong move in relation to my files 😊, but afterwards I defended myself rather well.

My original idea was 35…Rf6? but there is 36.e7 Re6 and, for example, 37.Qd8; there are probably 36 wins, but 37.Qd8 Rxd6 38.e8=Q Rxd8 39.Qe5 mate is convincing! Anyway, I realized that I couldn’t play 35…Rf6 and so I fell back on 35…Rg7, with the idea that after 36.e7? there’s the unlikely 36…Ke6!… I thought he might fall for it, knowing that if white wins exist, they’re not so easy either. And that’s exactly what happened 😊. With the King on e6, all of a sudden my pieces control his Queen’s squares and as soon as it moves, I can now take e7 because there’s no more Bxe7 Qxe7, Qxc6+.

Dubov reacted well with 37.Kg3. I was very worried that the pawn endgame could be lost right away, so I thought about it for a minute or so. I played 37…h5, which is a good move because now if 38.Kf2, there’s 38…Qb6+! (but not 38…Qb2+? 39.Kg1! Qb7 40.Qxg6+! Rxg6 41.e8=Q+ Kxd6 [41…Kf6 42.Be5+ Kf5 43.Bd4! and it’s mate somewhere] 42.Qxg6+ Kc5 [42…Kc7 43.Qf7+] 43.Qxh5+ with a winning Queen’s endgame). After Dubov’s 38.a5, I was able to play 38…Qd7! (and not 38…Rxe7? 39.Qxg6+). The pawn endgame after 39.Qd8 Rxe7 40.Bxe7 Qxe7 41.Qxe7+ Kxe7 42.Kf2 Ke6 holds because if 43.Ke3, unfortunately for him, there’s 43…Kf5 44.g3 a6 and white is in zugzwang! So he played 43.g4 a6 44.Ke3 hxg4 45.hxg4 Kd5 46.Kf2 (46.g5 c5 and no zugzwang!) 46…Ke6 47.Ke2 Kd6 and a draw just after.

MVL-Oparin, Final game 1: 1/2

It all went down to a gift from me, as I blundered a piece in a good position. Still, I managed to create a few problems in this winning endgame for black, right up to the diagrammed position…

The technical realization isn’t so easy once my c-pawn has advanced. I thought I’d done the hard part, but in fact Black had 55…Be5! 56.c7 Rb4+! (very important) and I can’t take, while if 57.Ka6 Rc4, the pawn falls.
But Oparin played 55…Rf1? the logical move, which also sets a trap: after 56.c7 Rb1+ 57.Kc6? Rc1+ 58.Kb6 Rxc7! with the same idea. That’s what we both thought during the game, but in reality the « trap » doesn’t work because of 57.Ka6! Rc1 58.Rd7! (threat 59.Kb7) and Black can’t escape without self-pinning with 58…Kg6 59.Rd6+ Bf6 (59…Kf7 60.Rd7+) 60.Kb7 and the pawn will still cost the Rook. In the game, I had seen the other way out, 56.Rd5. The endgame still looks losing, but after 56…Rb1+ 57.Ka6 Rc1 58.Kb7 Kg6 59.c7 Bf6 60.Rd6 Rxc7+ 61.Kxc7 f4, I found the only move 62.Rd5!.But I hadn’t calculated the whole line to the end. By force of circumstance, I’m obliged to cut his King off: because if he plays …Kf5 and then …f3 my King is too far away. So the idea is 62…f3 63.Rd3 f2 64.Rf3 which comes back to the rest of the game, 62…Bxh4 63.Kd6 f3 64.Rd3 (especially not 64.Ke5? Kg5 65.Ke4 Kg4 66.Ke3 Kg3 67.Ke2 Kg2 followed by …Bg3 and the h-pawn triumphs) 64…f2 65.Rf3 and I’m just in time to draw after 65…Kg5 66.Ke5 Kg4 67.Ke4 Bg3 68.Ke3 Kh3 followed by 69.Rxf2.

MVL-Oparin, Final game 3: 1-0

A pretty cool game! I’d survived a scary attack in the second game, so I wanted to solidify my play a bit. But my Asnières teammate chose to take quite a few risks in the approach to this game. On the contrary, I tried to maintain a small, stable advantage as soon as I could. I knew that I had stronger moves at times, but that inevitably involved an element of risk that I didn’t want to assume at the time.

Obviously, this endgame is likely to be drawn if Black defends perfectly, but in practice, the probability of winning isn’t that low at all. After the simple 43.Rd2, I protect b2 and it’s my King who will win the d3 pawn after 43…Kf7 44.Ke3 Rb3 45.Kd4 Ke6 46.Kc4. After 46…Rb8, 47.b4! is an important, time-saving move compared to 47.Kxd3?. So I didn’t know whether this endgame was winning or not. In my mind, it was most likely a draw, but the machine says it’s not! On reflection, it’s not so surprising, as Black doesn’t have much time left, with my King supporting the advancing b-pawn. For me, in this type of situation in a rapid game, the important thing is not whether it’s a win or a draw (it’s the opposite in a classical game, of course). What I want is for the defense to be as complicated as possible. By the way, in just a few moves, Oparine collapsed, proof of the difficulty of the task. After 47…Rh8 48.h3 Rh4+ 49.Kc3 Kd5 50.Rxd3+ Kc6, he missed 51.Rg3! and now if 51…g5, there’s 52.Rf3 and his Rook will be cut off one way or another, whether on h6 or h7. He preferred to play 51…Kb5 but 52.Rxg7, and he resigned since he has no way of recovering the b4 pawn.

So-MVL, Grand Final game 1: 0-1

This game wasn’t very clear at first, in which I preferred to opt for a line that was a little more solid than usual, even though I don’t normally play like this.

We got to an endgame at the start of which I was 5 minutes ahead on the clock. By the way, playing fast has helped me enormously in many matches; of course, it’s not without risks, but when you get to the money time with a lead of several minutes, it’s a big advantage…

Here, he should have played 36.Rd8 to control the advance of the d-pawn right away. He figured he’d play 36.Kg2? first, because after 36…d3, he’d have 37.c6 and since there’s no longer 37…Rb1 ith check, he can therefore take b7. Except that I had calculated all this and continued here with 37…d2!. The first idea is 38.Bxb4 d1=Q 39.cxb7 Qd5+! and 40…Qxb7. The second idea is 38.cxb7 d1=Q 39.b8=Q Rb1 or 39…Qd5+ and Black mates. The trivial 38…Kd6 also wins by the way, but that I hadn’t seen 😊.

So he played 38.Rd8. Here I made a little mistake; well, first I calculated 38…Rd4 39.Rxd4 Kxd4 40.cxb7 d1=Q? 41.b8=Q and I couldn’t find the win because the Queen protects g3! For example 41…Qf3+ 42.Kg1 Ne2+ 43.Kf1 and I no longer have 43…Nxg3+. But this is all a bit silly, as the simple 40…Nc6 would stop the pawn 😊. I said to myself that this was frustrating, but that I should look at the other candidate move 38…Nd4. Note that it took me a minute to play 38…Nd4, so everything I’m describing still went pretty quickly! 39.Bxb4 (39.c7 loses in the same way) 39…d1=Q 40.c7 Qf3+ and then you see 41.Kf1 Qh1 mate or 41.Kg1 Ne2+ 42.Kf1 Nxg3+ and it’s mate. After 41.Kh3, checkmate is a little different: 41…Qh1+ 42.Kg4 f5+ 43.Kf4 (43.Kg5 Ne6#) 43…Qe4+ 44.Kg5 and Black can choose between three different mates! In the game, he played 41.Kh2, and it’s mate too after 41…Qxf2+ 42.Kh3 Qf1+ 43.Kh2 Nf3#.

After many adventures in this match, including an Armageddon very well mastered by Wesley, I had to bow out. Except that, having won the Winner’s bracket, I was entitled to an extra life! In the Reset match, I was able to strike again as black in a beautiful Grunfeld.

So I had white in the second game, and once again, a draw was enough to win the tournament…

MVL-So, Grand Finale Reset game 2: 1-0

Wesley chose the Najdorf and I found ways of exchanging as many pieces as possible in the way I wanted, i.e. while remaining fairly active. That’s how you manage a game where you have to draw as white 😊.

Here, Wesley played 37…Nf5+. Given the match situation, knowing that a draw was sufficient, I could play 38.Bxf5 exf5 39.Ng6+ followed by 40.Nf4. I could also play 38.Kf4 without exchanging on f5, followed by Nc4-e3; I can do a bit of everything really, but I forced myself to calculate anyway! And what immediately catches the eye is to exchange on f5 and then 39.Nxc6 bxc6,to play the pawn endgame. I’ve got my passed pawn on g5, I’ve got a 3 vs. 2 on the Queenside, and my King controls the opponent’s two connected passed pawns. So, intuitively, this should be good. The simplest and most technical move to make it all work is 40.b4! which controls a6 and c6, and the next moves are c4, a4 and b5; especially not 40.c4? which doesn’t win because of 40…a5! and white’s majority is under control.

After 40…Ke6, I didn’t have to start with 41.Kf4, but there’s no reason to allow 41.a4 Ke5 42.c4 f4+, even if it’s still a win for white. In the game, Wesley resigned here, since after 41…Kd5, I have the choice between 42.c3 to prevent …Kd4, or 42.g6 Ke6 43.c4 Kf6 44.a4 Kxg6 45.b5 and black’s King isn’t in the drawing zone.

It’s a bit like the two weaknesses principle, but adapted to pawn endgames: the King can’t chase both pawns at the same time!

Thanks to this victory, next time in Division 1, I’ll be joined by Firouzja (brilliant D1 winner) and Carlsen (finalist), as well as 5 other players from the qualifiers.

Maxime’s games :

Maxime is regularly asked to travel to chess events, particularly in France, and when his schedule permits, he gladly accepts. On May 19, for example, he was present in the magnificent salons of the Mairie du XVe arrondissement in Paris, where the final phase of the Top Jeunes 2024, the flagship team competition for under-16s, took place. An annual gathering that Maxime knew well when he was one of the Espoirs himself, and which is very popular among French chess circles.

A few weeks ago, the sponsor of my German team in Baden-Baden sent me an invitation to a prestigious tournament that I had no reason to decline!

So I arrived in Karlsrühe the day before the tournament straight from Austria, where I’d played the final games of the Austrian Team Championship with my club Linz (4.5/5 for Maxime and a new championship title 😊).

The Grenke tournament was kind of a « revival », as the last edition had taken place in 2019. The 2020 edition was planned but had to be cancelled due to the Covid pandemic. The sponsor also skipped the next three years. However, it was all the better to come back this year, with a festival that will go down in history!

I received my invitation rather late, but for a last-minute event, the organizers really pulled out all the stops, with almost 2800 players in the Opens – a real performance! Of course, the 6 Classic players (Carlsen, Ding, Rapport, Keymer, Fridman and myself) were in great demand for autographs and selfies, especially as there were so many youngsters in the Opens. Magnus’ presence, of course, and that of Ding Liren too, added a lot of cachet to the tournament.

Unsurprisingly, this led to delays in every round. But it was understandable and hardly embarrassing in truth. And this gigantic gathering of chess players created quite an atmosphere around the tournament. It’s impressive to have so many players in one place, and a whole city « breathing chess » for a week. I’m not going to be hypocritical, it’s not necessarily very easy to play in these conditions, because inevitably there’s noise; but that’s the other side of the coin, you can’t have conviviality and monastic silence at the same time 😊.

On a personal note, I had quite a few friends and acquaintances who played in the Opens, which was very pleasant in the sense that it provided a bit of a social link that I’m not used to in top-level tournaments.

As far as the rhythm of play (45+10) is concerned, this tournament was a kind of test, although some – including myself – had already been able to try it out at the 2022 World Team Championship in Jerusalem. The basic idea is to be able to play two games a day. But the pace is still pretty fast. While I never struggle with the clock in Classical games, here in Karlsrühe I’ve sometimes ended up in zeitnot. All in all, the games were of fairly good quality; except perhaps in the endgames, where it’s often complicated to play precisely, especially at certain critical moments (I’m thinking, for example, of my first game against Magnus, to which I’ll return below).

Personally, I thought it was too bad not to play the double round against the same opponent alternating colors, which would have seemed more logical.

Overall, I’d say that this pace of play is interesting, even if it’s obviously intense, since there’s hardly any break between games. Of course, you can choose to do a light preparation in the morning to compensate, but even so, you’re burning up energy. Another thing I regret a little is that the organizers chose to negotiate a fee with the players (or their representatives), and not to award prizes. No prizes, no points for the Classical rating, there was not much at stake, even if there was obviously still the chance to add a tournament to your track record! But if you don’t win, 3rd or 5th in the tournament is almost the same…

On the final day, mini-matches determined the final places (1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6). I won my match for third place against Keymer. Of course, I was determined to do well, but in reality, it wasn’t like winning a bronze medal at the Olympic Games 😊.

Here’s a look back at some of my games at the Grenke Classic:

Mvl-Fridman, Round 3 : 0-1

The opening didn’t go very well for me; I wasn’t out of prep, but I didn’t expect him to master this variation of the French defense so well. So I wasn’t sure what I was doing. At one point, however, I decided to vary a little from the usual plans for this type of position, notably when I decided to take back the sacrificed pawn in the opening, which is usually left « for life ».

But it wasn’t necessarily a terrible decision, and just afterwards there was the critical moment when he played 16…Be7, a slightly inaccurate move, starting with 16…h6 would have been safer. After 17.Bg5, he could have tried to win the piece with 17…Nb2, but in the end he decided not to because it looked very dangerous after 18.Qe2 Qxc3 19.e6 fxe6 20.Rac1 Qxa3 21.Rxc8+ Bxc8 22.Bxe7 Kxe7 22.Qe5. At least that’s what I’d seen and that’s more or less the computer line; there’s a whole bunch of possibilities and I find it rather frightening for black!

In the end, I gradually took the advantage, but it was never easy, even though I thought it would be in the following position:

After 40.Nd5! Kf8 (40…Bxd5? 41.d7), my mistake was not to play 40.Nf6!; the King comes to f4, the Rook slides to g1 via a1, and black’s King is in dire staits while the c-pawn will have trouble distracting white. Unfortunately, I thought that with 40.Rc3? Re2 41.Ne3, I’d take the c4-pawn, except that after 41…Ra2, if 42.Nxc4? then 42…f4+! 43.Kxf4 Rxa4 or 43.Kh4 Rh2 and I’d be mated.

After that, I had to change my plans, but the situation spiraled out of control. I probably missed another win, and the endgame was a succession of reciprocal errors played out with little time on the clock, before I went completely off the rails and cracked last…

Carlsen-Mvl, Round 4 : ½

Just after this horrible defeat, I followed up with black against Magnus! Admittedly, there’s not much to fear when Magnus plays 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Be2 e5 5.Bc4 😊. You can feel that you’re not necessarily going to be worse if you know roughly how to react, which I did, with a rather well-controlled opening.

Here, I could have simply played 14…Be6, but in fact I was stuck with the idea that I should try to push …f5 as quickly as possible, so I preferred 14…Kh8 15.Ne3 Qg6. He decided to drastically prevent …f5 and pushed 16.g4, on which I had calculated that I was bringing my Knight to f4 starting with 16…Nd8 but it was actually a bit risky; 17.Df3! was well played, at least from a practical point of view, since if I play 17…Ne6 now, he’ll exchange on e6 and I can’t take back the pawn, ending up really badly off on the Kingside: he’ll simply follow up with Ke2, Rag1 and g5, and I didn’t want to let that happen. So I chose to temporize, even at the cost of opening the g-file with 17…Bd7 18.g5 Ne6 19.gxh6 gxh6. From then on, it became highly complicated, with a three-result position on the board.

Instead of the normal 23…fxe4, I got a little cocky and started with 23…c4? which is a mistake; I should have felt that with my Queen on h7, I shouldn’t ask too much of the position! Fortunately, Magnus didn’t find 24.dxc4 fxe4 25.Qe3! Rf3 26.Qd2 Nc5 (not necessarily obvious at first, but black’s position is too disharmonious after 26…Rd3 27.Qe1!) 26.Nf4! followed by 27.Qxd6 and black is on the verge of collapse.

In the game, I had seen the position up to 24.Bc2?! fxe4 25.Qxe4 Qxe4 26.dxe4 Be8 27.f4! (otherwise, I attack f2 and threaten …Rd8 followed by …Nf4 at any time). After 27…Bh5 (I spent a lot of time on this move because I thought he might want to play 28.f5 and checked that it was okay for me, which it is after 28…Bxd1 29.Rxd1 Nf4 or 29.fxe6 Bxc2 30.Kxc2 Rf2+ 31.Kc1 Rg8!) 28.Rd2 exf4? (28…Nxf4 29.Nxf4 Rxf4 30.Rxd6 Kh7 =)

I knew I stopped 29.Ne7 (threatening 30.Ng6+) because of 29…f3, but just as I was taking on f4, I realized I was allowing 29.Nc7!.

What a cold shower! I hesitated to resign at once, but saw that I still had 29…Rg8 (the forced line 29…Nxc7 30.Rxd6 Rf7 [30…Kh7 31.e5+] 31.e5 Rg7 32.Rxh6+ Kg8 33.Rxg7+ Kxg7 34.Rxh5 leaves an easily winning endgame to white) 30.Rxg8+ Kxg8 31.Nxe6 Rg1+ 32.Bd1 Rf1 (but not 32…f3? 33.Rf2) and my f-pawn still leaves me with vague practical chances. And that’s precisely what happened (albeit with a little help😊) 33.Rxd6 f3 34.Nf4

Here, Magnus panicked, and thought for almost his remaining 2 minutes. He believed 34…Bg4 was impossible because of 35.Rxh6+ Kg7 37.Rg6+ Kh7 38.Rxg4, but after 38…f2, none of his pieces can sacrifice themselves on the f-pawn, which queens; the position still remains a draw after 38.Nd5 Rxd1+ 39.Kxd1 f1=Q+ 40.Kc2, thanks to the check on f6. Looking for the win and not finding it, he relied on 35.Ng6+? which happens not to be enough. Yet he had two ways to win. The radical 35.Nh5! f2 (35…Bxh5 36.Rxh6+ Kg7 37.Rxh5 f2 38.Rf5 +-) 36.Rd8+ Kh7 37.Nf6+ and 38.Nxg4. The other, slower way, was to start with 35.Kc2 before giving the check on g6. If 35…f2, now 36.Ng6+ Kg7 37.Bxg4 Rc1+ 38.Kxc1 f1=Q+ 39.Rd1 followed by 40.Bf5!, everything is protected and white will win.

In the game, Magnus was forced to give the piece back and settle for an even Rook endgame after 35…Kg7 36.Kc2 h5 37.Ne5 f2 38.Rg6+ Kh7 39.Rf6 Bxd1+ 40.Kd2 Bg4 41.Ke3 Re1+ 42.Kxf2 Rxe4 43.Nxg4 Rxg4.

Even so, I could very well have lost this endgame, because I made it difficult for myself by not activating my King when it was possible. Even at the very end, he could still cause me problems…

Okay, it’s a draw with the a and c pawns. Everyone knows that, but defending it in practice with only the 10-second increment is another story!

Instead of 68.Rf6, which allows me to draw by force with 68…Ra5 winning one of the two pawns, Magnus could have tried 68.Rd6. At first, I missed that if 68…Ra5 there’s now 69.a7! which wins because 70.Rd8 is unstoppable, and if 69…Rxa7 70.Rd7+. But then I realized when he was thinking (it still took him a minute to play 68.Rf6) that I had the resource 68…Re1+. But after 69.Re6, it would still have been necessary to avoid 69…Ra1? 70.Ke8! and White wins because he vacates the e7 square for the Rook and thus threatens 71.a7. Therefore, the only move would have been 69…Rd1! anticipating 70.a7 Kb7 or 70.Ke8 Rd8+. It was still very, very much borderline!

Mvl-Rapport, Round 5 : 1-0

At first, I thought this French Winawer was going rather well, but I was inaccurate in my piece positioning. I have to say that after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 Qc7 8.Bd3, I couldn’t remember the sub-variation 8…Qa5!? 9.Bd2 c4 at all. It’s pretty clever, you get positions that Richard likes, of a kind I’ve had against him before and where it hasn’t always gone well for me.

A few days later, Magnus showed against the same opponent what to do: 10.Be2 Rg8 11.a4 Nbc6, as I played is correct, but now 12.Qh3! h6 13.Bh5 Bd7 14.Ne2. I played a bit automatically 12.Nf3 Bd7 13.0-0 h6 14.Rfb1 and thought I was going to be slightly better, but I quickly realized that this wouldn’t be the case because black is very quick to play …f6 or …g5.

That’s why, after 14…0-0-0, I opted for 15.Rb5 Qc7 16.Qf4 and, with the Queen on c7, 16…f6 17.exf6 would allow a Queen’s exchange favorable to me. And if 16…Rdf8 17.h4! I could control what happens on the Kingside. Moreover, in this position, I threaten the Bc1-a3 thematic maneuver at any time.

Except that Richard chose another path by sacrificing a pawn with 16…g5! which I had seen, but perhaps underestimated. Admittedly, he can’t trap my Queen after 17.Qxf7 Ng6 18.Qh7. 17…Rdf8 didn’t seem problematic either after 18.Qh5 g4 19.Nh4 Be8 20.Qxh6 Rh8 as I was considering giving the piece away after 21.Qxe6+ Bd7 22.Qd6 with no doubt a nice compensation. But in fact he simply played 17…Nf5 18.g4 Rdf8 (if 18…Ng7 19.Qf6, my Queen will always come out) 19.Qh5 Be8 20.Qh3. I thought the worst was over, that I was a pawn up and that my position was still pretty solid. The computer is not at all impressed and even prefers black after 20…Qg7, a rather lunar move, with the idea of bringing the Nf5 back to g6 via e7.

Richard played the more human 20…h5, a move for long-term compensation, which I had expected. Thinking I was better off than I actually was, I wanted to solidify my position when I should have been trying to get something going on the Queenside. After a lot of maneuvering, including my hasty transfer of the King to the Queenside, we ended up in the following position:

I thought for a long time before playing 38.Qd2 and set a nice trap, since here 38…Ne3 is very tempting, but loses! 39.Bb4! Nxb4 40.cxb4 Qb6 41.Qxe3 Qxb4 42.Bc2 Qc3 43.Ra2 +-. But 38…b5! came as a bit of a blow. After 39.axb5 I wasn’t afraid of 39…Qxb5 40.Qb2, but I realized that 39…Rb8 was strong (40.bxc6? Qxa3+!); it has to be said, Richard is always quite creative in these murky positions! However, after a few minutes’ thought, I came up with 40.Bb2 Qxb5 41.Ba4 Qb7 (or 41…Qb6, I wasn’t sure) 42.Kd1! (my King goes the other way!). The idea was 42…Na5 43.Ba3 and I seemed to be doing pretty well; 43…Nb3 44.Bxb3 Qxb3+ 45.Ke1 followed by 46.Kf2 and everything seemed under control. After 43…Qa6! which is actually the best move, I was thinking of playing 44.Bc5, because if 44…Nb3? I have 45.Bc6+!, but the machine indicates 44…Rg7! which again threatens 45…Nb3 since a7 is now protected; it also threatens 45…Rgb7 and in any case, white’s position looks extremely perilous.

Phew, he played the spectacular but erroneous 43…Qh7?, which still gave me a shock for about ten seconds! Indeed, my King can no longer take refuge on the Kingside, but there’s an antidote! 44.Bb4! and I’ll be able to take the King back to the queenside again; what a royal zigzag! After 44…Qh5+ 45.Kc1 Rxb4 (forced, black’s Queen is now too far from her own King, and if 45…Nb7? 46.Bd1 or 46.Bc6 followed by 47.Qa2 is terminal) 46.cxb4 Nxd4, I had calculated a completely crazy variation! 47.bxa5 Ne2+ 48.Kb2 c3+ 49.Qxc3 Nxc3 50.Kxc3 Bf5? 51.Rab1! Bxb1 52.Rxb1, black has no check, I threaten mate, and if 52…a6 53.Bc6+ Ka7 54.Rb7+ Ka8 55.Rh7+; but I thought it wouldn’t work and indeed there’s 50…Rxg5! or even 50…Qe2. So I preferred to play 47.Kb2 and in case of 47…Ne2, look at the alternatives to taking on a5 (spoiler, there are quite a few!).

But in the end, Richard played 47…Nab3. I wasn’t extremely precise because 48.Qf2! was lethal, and not my choice of 48.Bxb3? Nxb3 49.Qf2, which allowed 49…Nxa1 and black still resists (whereas after 48.Qf2! Nxa1 49.Qxd4, black would have been a full Rook down). I still managed to win a Rook ending in which I was able to remain precise. It gave the tournament a bit of a boost, because before that game, Richard was alone in the lead with a one-point advantage…

Rapport-Mvl, Round 9 : 1/2

Before this penultimate round, the tournament situation was quite simple: Richard was second behind Carlsen, with a one-point lead over me. So, in order to steal this place from him and play the final match against Magnus, it was almost imperative that I should win with black in this game.

Well aware of the situation, Richard played an extremely solid variation against the Ragozin. I still managed to find a line that kept pieces around and some play in the position:

After 13…dxe4, I have to say that he relieved me by preferring 14.Bxe4 to 14.Nxe4; I wasn’t sure what to do because the Knight will land on d6 no matter what, e.g. 14…f5 15.Nd6! Bxd6 16.cxd6 Qxd6 17.Re1 with a nice compensation. And if 14…e5, I was thinking 15.Re1 (there may also be 15.d5 cxd5 16.Nc3, but that’s not certain) 15…exd4 16.Nd6. 14.Fxe4 thus gave me hope of obtaining a more or less playable position. After 14…e5, Richard took a very long time for 15.Re1, because he was checking 15…f5? 16.Bc2 e4 17.Nxe4! fxe4 18.Rxe4, which I had automatically eliminated! As well as wasting time, he didn’t anticipate my a tempo reply 15…Qd8, and that’s when he started to get a bit scared, I think.

Here, I completely missed the possibility of 18…Bf4!, allowing the scary looking 19.Qxg6+, which would lose the exchange though after 19…Kh8 ; still, this position looks totally unclear to me. Originally, I wanted to go for 18…Kg7, but after 19.Qxd4+ Ne5, I would have allowed the possibility of 20.Nd5! and thought it was never going to work for black. That’s why I finally chose 18…Kh7. I also knew I was wasting precious time, but fortunately Richard didn’t use it so well.

He sacrificed a pawn, which didn’t seem absolutely necessary, and a few moves later, I had a position in which I felt I had winning chances.

Here, I played 30…Rad8?!, but it proved insufficient after 31.bxc5 bxc5 32.Rxc5 Rxd6 33.Rcc7 and white was able to save the half-point. At first, however, I wanted to take on b4, but it didn’t seem enough at the time: 30…cxb4 31.axb4 Rad8 32.Rc6 Rd7 33.Rxd7 (33.Rc7! immediately is actually much more tenacious) 33…Rxd7 34.Rc7 Rd8 35.Rxa7 and here I missed 35…Be8! winning the d6-pawn and probably the game.

I waited quietly to find out the identity of my opponent for the next day’s final-place match. In the end, it was Keymer who emerged from a three-way tie-break with Ding Liren and Fridman.

All in all, black were pretty strong in this final match, as they got an advantage in three of the four games!

Keymer-Mvl, match for 3rd place, Tie-beak (4): 0-1

After three draws, this match was decided in the fourth game. Thanks to 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nbd2 d5 4.e3 a5!?, I was able to prevent him from playing 5.b4, more or less circumventing his preparation. It was also a position that seemed quite playable for black.

After a few twists and turns and an inaccuracy on my part, I could easily have found myself in trouble…

Fortunately, Vincent had already spent a lot of time, and here he missed the strong 20.c4! which would have put my center under great pressure. Instead, another neutral move like 20.Qe2 or 20.Nd3 would have been possible, but not 20.Qf3? which allows 20…Bh6! 21.Rc2? (21.Dd3 was a much lesser evil) 21…Ne4! 22.Nxe4 dxe4 23.Rxe4 Bxb3 and black has a clear advantage. Rather than allowing 24.Rb2 Bd5, Vincent went all in with 24.g5 Bxg5 25.c4, which may look attractive, but doesn’t work. I had calculated 24.c4 immediately, and after 24…Bxc2 25.Qxf7+ Rh8 27.d5, the most accurate was 27…Qb6 which prevents 28.Bb2 and there’s no attack (but of course not 27…Bxe4?? 28.Bb2! and it’s mate). In the game, after 25…Bxc2 26.Qxf7+ Kh8, he played 27.Rg4 Rf8 28.d5 Bf6 but resigned soon afterwards.

Congratulations to Magnus on another victory, after an incredible final match against Rapport!

Maxime’s games in Austria:

Maxime’s games at Grenke :

One of France’s most popular TV programs, « Envoyé Spécial » will devote a long report on Thursday evening (April 11) to the chess boom of recent years. Broadcast on France 2, it will look at the phenomenon from two angles. The first is that of a family of chess players, whose day-to-day life we follow; the second is that of a champion, in this case Maxime, whom the France 2 teams accompanied to training, to a visit to the French Youth Championship in Agen, and to a tournament on the professional circuit in Bucharest.

https://www.france.tv/france-2/envoye-special

Mvl, it’s the others who talk about him best…

Taking advantage of the lacklustre news at the start of the year, we asked five of his compatriots, leading figures on the French chess scene, to give us a slightly personal insight into Maxime.

Here are 5 themes, presented by :

Eric BIRMINGHAM (FM, Maxime’s first coach)

Eloi RELANGE (GM, President of the French Chess Federation)

Pauline GUICHARD (GMF, Maxime’s club and French team-mate – gynecologist)

Marc LLARI (CM, U8 world champion in 2022)

Manuel AESCHLIEMANN (Mayor of Asnières, Maxime’s club town)

Your very first personal memory of Maxime:

Eric BIRMINGHAM

A little guy is taking my group course for youngsters in Créteil for the first time. He raises his finger, suggests a move and a variation. He’s got it! « Damn » I say to myself, he can barely see over his table! The kid’s only five. I ask him his first name: « Je m’appelle Maxime »…

Eloi RELANGE

When Maxime was very young, I didn’t play in the same competitions as he did, so I didn’t get the chance to meet him then. But of course, I’d heard about this little kid with a growing reputation, whom urban legend presented as a potential world champion. When you don’t see it with your own eyes, this kind of prediction always makes you smile a little, but it turned out to be absolutely right!

As for the first time I saw Maxime, it was much later…

Pauline GUICHARD

The first time we competed in the same French Youth Championship was, I think, in 1999. But my first real memory of him was in 2002 at the French Youth Championship in Hyères. He was 11 years old and playing in the U16 section; he was vastly outclassed and still won that year.

What I remember most is that he was so small, it was quite funny compared to the 16-year-old boys… And that’s when I said to myself: “That’s impressive, he’s really, really good!

Marc LLARI

At the French Youth Championship in April 2023, as I was heading towards the stage to play, Maxime was in the middle of an autograph photo session just in front of the stairs, so we took a photo together before the round.

Manuel AESCHLIMANN

When we asked Maxime to play for the Asnières Chess Club. For such a young club, it seemed a little pretentious to ask a player of his level. On the contrary, Maxime responded with kindness and humility. I knew it was going to work out well.

A personal anecdote with Maxime:

Eric BIRMINGHAM

At a trophy ceremony in Cannes, in the south of France, Maxime and I are strolling through the town; Maxime is seven or eight years old. We find ourselves in a rather chic shopping street. I stop in front of a window displaying luxury watches. The little boy and I look at the prices, and burst out laughing. Despite his very young age, Maxime has his feet firmly on the ground; he’s perfectly aware of the value of everyday things. For a good hour, we looked at jewelry, watches, dresses, etc., which cost more than his father’s car! (and Patrick, his daddy, had a good car!). During that hour, despite our huge age difference, we were in symbiosis in the face of these oddities of consumer society, and we laughed a lot.

Eloi RELANGE

I’ve had the opportunity to play blitz against Maxime several times in recent years, and each time I was winning in the first game, though of course I lost them all! I remember he was in real trouble in the opening, particularly against the Philidor. But systematically, he came back from these frankly desperate positions. Okay, one time it was in a bar, another time at the home of an elected member of the FFE, and a third time elsewhere. And then I have to admit that, as always when there’s a big difference in level, you give it your all in the first game, he’s not so hot, so you hold out pretty well, but the following games, it’s not the same story at all!

As for the one time I played against Maxime in a classical game, I was white and had prepared against the Grünfeld, since at the time, that was all he played (French Team Championship 2012). So I looked for particularly solid variations and in the end, he played a Queen’s Indian! I was very happy, because I thought he wouldn’t have known this kind of position so well, and what’s more, I had good results in this variation. But as it turned out, he gradually ground the advantage and I couldn’t do anything about it. As a result, the solid, innocuous white opening gave me a completely hopeless position at move 36, in which I lost on time.

The game :

Pauline GUICHARD

In fact, the few times I played against Maxime were at parties! But I remember beating him in the first, or one of the very first games, even though I must admit he always played with 30 seconds and I with 3 minutes! But I prefer to keep the simple memory of having beaten Maxime once…

Marc LLARI

On the last day of the Rapid World Team championship in Düsseldorf (August 2023), we went to a restaurant with the whole team.

I was opposite Maxime and he proposed a riddle about a rabbit hidden in a box containing 6 cages. I had to suggest the cage where the rabbit was hiding and find it in as few moves as possible. It kept me thinking all through the meal!

Manuel AESCHLIMANN

Whenever Maxime takes part in an event in Asnières and there’s press, the media always ask me to play a few moves against him on a chessboard, just so they can film the exchange. It’s frustrating to stop once the catch has been made, after ten or so moves. This must be the sixth or seventh unfinished game we’ve played like this. That said, I’ve got an idea of how it would end if we went all the way…

A game or a moment in his career that stood out for you:

Eric BIRMINGHAM

In 2009, Maxime played a Najdorf in Biel against Alexander Morozevitch. This game is crazy. I didn’t understand it at the time (which didn’t stop me from showing it to my students in class… My God, I’m a fraud!). I went through it again before writing these lines. I still don’t understand anything (this game is really too difficult). I never asked Maxime: “If there had been a doping test after this game, would it have been positive?“.

The game :

Eloi RELANGE

There are two moments that stand out in my mind. The first was when he beat Naiditsch in a French Team Championship match between Evry and Clichy in 2009. I wasn’t playing that match, so was able to witness this fantastic Najdorf won against a Naiditsch in top form at the time (2700, #31 in the world in 2009). The game would have been hard to play as white and yet Maxime even beat him as black as if he were a tourist!

The game :

Like many others, I also remember the 2021 World Blitz championship final against Duda, which I watched with my family at home!

The game :

With my three children jumping up and down shouting “Maxime, Maxime!”; so, apart from the exceptional performance of this first world champion title for a Frenchman, it was also an extremely enjoyable family moment for me!

Pauline GUICHARD

Without hesitation for me, it’s his 2021 World Blitz championship title in Warsaw. I wasn’t in Poland that year because I was too busy at the office at the time. But I remember very clearly that I couldn’t follow the end of the tournament because I was at the cinema with friends; there were 5 or 6 rounds left and I had to turn my phone off. When I turned it back on at the end of the film, I saw that he’d just beaten Carlsen

The game :

, and was about to start the tie-break blitz against Duda! So I followed these games with my friends, who weren’t chess players at all and didn’t really understand my excitement at the time! I don’t remember the film I saw at all, but I do remember feeling very emotional when Maxime won; I was really happy for him…

Marc LLARI

His Blitz victory over Magnus Carlsen at the 2023 World Blitz Championship, when Maxime sent 5 pawns against 2 on the Queenside in the endgame!

The game :

Manuel AESCHLIMANN

I’m not being very original, but I’d say it was his title of Blitz World Champion. Beyond the chess analysis relating to his remarkable career, it was above all the recognition and media coverage he received from the general public that impressed me. The game of chess has suddenly become popular again in our country. A well-deserved consecration.

Imagine what Maxime will do after his career:

Eric BIRMINGHAM

MVL is an immense champion, perhaps the most fabulous calculator on the planet. But Maxime is also a nice guy, very sociable and kind-hearted. I can imagine him running a great restaurant (he loves good food), going from table to table with a kind word for everyone. Every now and then, a customer would tell him about Carlsen or Nakamura. And our 64-square Tartarin would tell a story or two. But, unlike Daudet’s hero, everything the old champion would say would be true!

Eloi RELANGE

Already, I imagine he won’t be doing what Kramnik is doing, namely focusing on chess cheating with questionable statistics!

I don’t see him as president of the federation either, because that doesn’t seem to me to be very promising for him; even though I think he’d make a very good president because he’s got a good grasp of things, as well as a very strong embodiment. And I find it hard to imagine him outside chess… Maybe in strategy consulting for some firms, but I’m not convinced he’d like it.

Pauline GUICHARD

Maxime is a big fan of games and sports, so I could see him as a sports commentator, rather specialized in NBA basketball. Or maybe, in the soccer world, he’d be the announcer for Olympique Lyonnais at Groupama Stadium 😊.

Marc LLARI

Wild boar hunter – Stone cutter – Ladybird breeder?

Or an Artificial Intelligence programmer for chess analysis engines!

Manuel AESCHLIMANN

First of all, I imagine and hope that the “after-career” is not on the agenda any time soon. Maxime still has plenty of victories to achieve, and great challenges await him for many years to come.

However, one day, I can see him as a web influencer on new technologies, with his phlegm and cold humor. He’d do wonders.

Bonus :

Reveals a little-known facet of Maxime’s personality or Find a joke to make him laugh

Eric BIRMINGHAM

People forget: as a teenager, Maxime was painfully shy. He managed to overcome this shortcoming relatively quickly. Beneath his somewhat debonair exterior, this gentle boy possesses a will of steel.

Eloi RELANGE

An interesting facet of Maxime’s personality is the fact that he’s extremely smiley, friendly and approachable, but in reality, in discussions, he always pauses to deliver an in-depth response. In fact, he really goes beyond the obvious little retort, and that’s what contrasts with his super warm side that everyone who approaches him sees and feels. I find this paradox quite amusing.

Pauline GUICHARD

I don’t know if this is a little-known aspect of his personality, and maybe people suspect it?

Chess is perceived more as an individual sport, but in reality, there are many team competitions. And what I find impressive about Maxime is his team spirit. Of all the top players I know, especially the French, he’s the only one with such a spirit. He’s always going all out, whether it’s with the French team or with Asnières. He’s really a leader and a driving force. And what I like about him is that despite often being under a lot of pressure because people expect results from him, as far as I can remember, he almost always performs heavily!

Marc LLARI

I don’t have a joke, but I do have a riddle to get back at him for the riddle he gave me in Düsseldorf!

Why do rabbits only play with 39 cards, not 52?

Because they eat the clovers!

Maxime’s riddle:
A rabbit moves along a corridor of 6 rooms, each with its own door. Each turn, you have the right to open a door to discover the rabbit. If you haven’t discovered the rabbit, once you’ve closed the door, the rabbit moves one room to the right or left (of course, if it’s at the end of the corridor, it can only move in one direction next turn). How many turns do you need to find the rabbit?

Manuel AESCHLIMANN

Lame joke:

I gave my daughter a fridge for her birthday. I can’t wait to see her face light up when she opens it.