Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (born 21 October 1990), often referred to by his initials, MVL, is a French chess grandmaster who is a former World Blitz Champion. With a peak rating of 2819, he is the seventh-highest rated player in history. A chess prodigy, Vachier-Lagrave earned the title of grandmaster in 2005 at age 14. In 2007, he won the French Chess Championship, and in 2009, won the World Junior Chess Championship and the Biel Grandmaster Tournament. He repeated as French Chess Champion in 2011 and 2012 and as the winner of the Biel Grandmaster Tournament in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. He won the Sinquefield Cup in 2017 and 2021 and competed in the Candidates Tournament 2020–21, placing second. He has participated in the Chess Olympiad and in the European Team Chess Championship, representing France.

Early life

From the age of six, Vachier-Lagrave competed in numerous sections of youth tournaments, winning the French Under-8 championship in 1997, U-10s in 1999, U-12s in 2000, U-16s in 2002, runner up in the U-18s in 2003 and won the U-20s in 2004 scoring 8/9. He also took part in the World Youth Chess Championship, coming third in the U-10 division in 2000 (8½/11), third in the U-12 championship in 2001 (8/11), second in the U-14 event in 2003 (9/11) and third in U-16 section in 2005 (8½/11). From 2001 to 2008, his FIDE rating increased steadily from 2198 in January 2001 to 2637 in January 2008. He passed 2600 in October 2007 and 2700 one year later. He became an International Master in 2004 and achieved the Grandmaster title in 2005 at the age of 14 years and 4 months after sharing first in the 2004 Paris Championship with 6½/9, winning the NAO GM tournament in 2004 with 6/9 and coming second in the Évry GM tournament in February 2005 with 7½/9.

Chess career

French Championships

Classical international tournaments

FIDE Grand Prix and World Cups

Candidates Tournament 2020–2021

On 6 March 2020, citing concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, Teimour Radjabov withdrew from the 2020–21 Candidates Tournament. His replacement was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, as he was next on the qualifier by rating list. FIDE decided to postpone the second half of the tournament due to the coronavirus pandemic. The tournament was resumed on 19 April 2021, and ended on 28 April 2021. Maxime ended the tournament with 8/14 points (4 wins, 8 draws, and 2 losses) getting second place, half a point behind the winner Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Grand Chess Tour tournaments

Rapid, Blitz and Bullet tournaments and matches

Teams

Vachier-Lagrave played in the French team championship with the NAO Chess Club teams since 1997. Team results include: He played for the Évry Grand Roque chess club in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Since 2011, he plays for the Clichy club chess team in the Top12. In the European Chess Club Cup, he played with SV Mülheim Nord (in 2008), SOCAR Baku (in 2010), Clichy Échecs 92 (in 2013) and Obiettivo Risarcimento Padova (2014–2016).

Rapid and blitz rankings

In addition to his strength in classical time controls, Vachier-Lagrave is very skilled at rapid and blitz chess. He won the World Blitz Chess Championship 2021, and was the only player to defeat eventual winner Magnus Carlsen during the 2023 edition. Maxime ranked third on the FIDE rapid list and tenth on the blitz list.

Tournament and match results (2003–2009)

TPR (Tournament Performance ratings) of FIDE-rated events calculated according to FIDE.

Personal life

Vachier-Lagrave also teaches chess on his personal YouTube channel, MVL Chess, and maintains a blog.