Vachier-Lagrave youngest French champ ever
Today France got a new national champion and he's only sixteen (and ten months) years old. His name: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. He finished shared first with the current European champion, Vladislav Tkachiev, but in today's tiebreak final naturally the internet generation representative proved to be the strongest blitz player (after the two rapid games had both ended in a draw).
Two years ago, Vachier-Lagrave disclosed himself as the big French talent by becoming a GM at the age of 14. It's clear that this chess summer he's experiencing a major breakthrough; during ChessVibes on tour we saw him win the Paris Championship, which proved to be a good omen for the real title. Now at the 82nd French Championship he (2595) left strong compatriots like Tkachiev (2655), Fressinet (2646) and Bauer (2626) behind him and there's only one word for that: magnifique.The final standings in the 11-round French Ch were:
1. Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime GM 2595 7,5 2. Vladislav Tkachiev GM 2655 7,5 3. Andrei Sokolov GM 2582 7,0 4. Christian Bauer GM 2626 6,5 5. Iossif Dorfman GM 2584 6,5 6. Robert Fontaine GM 2567 5,5 7. Laurent Fressinet GM 2646 5,5 8. Jean-Marc Degraeve GM 2520 5,0 9. Anatoly Vaisser GM 2544 5,0 10. Igor-Alexandre Nataf GM 2588 4,0 11. Olivier Renet GM 2498 3,5 12. Laurent Guidarelli IM 2450 2,5Here you can replay all of Vachier-Lagrave's games, including today's tiebreak:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.
Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.
Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.
As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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