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 2nd 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 2nd 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 😊.
www.chess.com).
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.