Maxime Vachier Lagrave is the best player in France, and he was the second-best of the world in his best moments. Still today, he is one of the players who belong to the closed group of elite chess masters.
Maxime Vachier Lagrave has a very instructive player, with a stiff yet correct style that reminds of Akiba Rubinstein. He has been at the top level for quite a long time and is part of the best players the world has seen in this generation.
He is actually the ninth player with the higher rating FIDE of the entire history, and one of the best to excel in tournaments. If we go back to 2009 we would remember that fast-paced advance he experienced in tournament chess.
Maxime Vachier Lagrave had a streak of wins and improvement that you rarely see at that level. That’s also when he started its consolidation among the elite chess players of the moment.
Consolidation that is still today, and that you can see in his win ratio today. One of the players that have been long among the best, apparently he will still be there for some time. This you can suspect from his good performance in the recent 2020 World Cup.
Today we will take a look at how good of a chess player Maxime Vachier Lagrave is, and how we can learn from him.
Maxime Vachier Lagrave’s playstyle
Maxime Vachier Lagrave is an interesting player to see in-game, the thing is he has a very classical style. When looking at his games, you feel like you are seeing a game from the classics.
But combined with that dynamism that is characteristics in contemporary chess, which makes it special. Maxime likes to lay positionally slow, and he likes endgames, but all of them tend to be really profound.
As in one of the games, we will see now, you will see a level of understanding that is really high. The positional accuracy of this player is something to fear, and his opening choices say so.
Although Maxime Vachier Lagrave is a positional master of the game, he is also one to trust in the attack. When he has to wrap up his positional squeezes with a tactical combination he knows how to do it.
Nothing less to expect from a player this experienced at the top level, one of the best in the world. However, if he had to choose between starting an attack directly to the king and an endgame, he would probably go for the last one.
Probably because Maxime Vachier Lagrave thinks victory tastes better if you take it slowly and surely.
Maxime Vachier Lagrave’s best games
The next game is between the best in France Maxime Vachier Lagrave against one of the best in the US GM Fabiano Caruana.
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