All posts tagged: Maxime

Why Maxime Vachier-Lagrave demoted Praggnanandhaa to the 3rd rung in his tier-list for Candidates | Chess News

Why Maxime Vachier-Lagrave demoted Praggnanandhaa to the 3rd rung in his tier-list for Candidates | Chess News

Published by Webster

5 min readUpdated: Mar 20, 2026 09:06 PM IST French grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has put India’s R Praggnanandhaa in the third tier in his ‘tier-list’ for the upcoming Candidates tournament where he has analysed and ranked all the eight players in the open Candidates event. The French grandmaster made the comments in a conversation on the Chess with Mustreader YouTube channel, where he also accepted that his opinion about Pragg was a bit of a “hot take”. Vachier-Lagrave started his tier list by pointing out that he did not “discount anyone” winning the title, pointing out that if the Candidates were held 25 times with the same set of players, all of the eight players would win the event at least once. Before we get to what Vachier-Lagrave said about Pragg, here’s a look at his tier list (where S is favourite while A, B and C are in descending order of chances the players have of winning the Candidates according to Vachier-Lagrave): Here is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s tier list: Tier S: Fabiano Caruana Tier A: …

Arjun Erigaisi defeats Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in game 1 of 5th place playoff

Arjun Erigaisi defeats Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in game 1 of 5th place playoff

Published by Webster

Arjun Erigaisi defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in 41 moves with black pieces in the playoff for the 5th place at the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour on Sunday. Both players will be back on Monday to play the second game with colours reversed. At the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess event, Arjun is already assured to be the best finishing Indian out of the four players who competed. While reigning world champion Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi finished joint 11th, Praggnanandhaa finished ninth in the standings after defeating Richard Rapport. If Arjun finishes in 5th place at the Paris event, he will take home a cool $50,000 (approximately Rs 43 lakh). How Arjun Erigaisi defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave The game started with position number 103 being drawn and Arjun finding himself in a huddle with other players who were also playing with black pieces on Sunday — Ian Nepomniachtchi, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. The three veterans did all the talking in the huddle over the chessboard, while Arjun sat at a distance, …

Global Chess League: How Magnus Carlsen blundered against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to lose with white | Chess News

Global Chess League: How Magnus Carlsen blundered against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to lose with white | Chess News

Published by Webster

Magnus Carlsen sat on his seat looking up in the sky, muttering away. He could not believe what he had just done. It was a blunder from the five-time world champion which was unexpected and uncharacteristic in equal measure. It took a while to sink in for the Norwegian. But finally, Carlsen threw in the towel against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and exited the playing hall in a huff. What made matters worse was that his team, the Alpine SG Pipers, lost 5-14 to the upGrad Mumba Masters with defeats for Richard Rapport and Daniel Dardha. Rapport, in fact, allowed Pragg’s coach Peter Svidler — who had not experienced a win in his six games at the second edition of the Global Chess League — his first victory after two defeats and four draws. Only Praggnanandhaa managed a victory for the Pipers’, beating Vidit Gujrathi, his senior teammate from the Indian gold medal-winning Chess Olympiad team. The rest of the games in the clash — Hou Yifan vs Koneru Humpy and Kateryna Lagno vs Harika Dronavalli — …