The other 1990 born Western European young talent

The vagaries of life make certain birth years packed with talents, whereas others are devoid of any enchantment. Today it is possible to argue that 1990 will go down as the strongest in history – until the next, of course. Along with Carlsen, Karjakin and Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave appears to be the proud representative of an epoch-making series of childbirths. All these players have in fact passed the 2700 mark, won titles and broken records. 

While the first two aforementioned players are more gifted – as their rise was faster – the last two, as a result, have gone through a more human, maybe more solid, evolution. They are also very familiar with the atmosphere of open tournaments, where you have to kill or be killed, while their two mates found themselves in the comfort of closed tournaments very quickly. In other words, the battles that are taking shape between these four players may well hit the chess headlines for a long time. 

Super talented like Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beats all records of precocity in France, where he became a GM at 14. Winner of the no longer existing but much liked Lausanne Young Masters in 2006 and French Champion in 2007, he confirmed these outstanding results at the strong closed tournament of Paks in 2008 and won the 2009 Grandmaster Tournament in Biel at his first participation, and then became Junior World Champion a few months later. Since then, his steady work backed by a private sponsor has enabled him to consolidate his game and pull off an excellent Wijk aan Zee this year. 

After a long-drawn-out job with Nikolai Spiridonov and then Arnaud Hauchard, Maxime Vachier Lagrave will certainly bring about changes in his play over the coming months. As a prime example of what Kasparov calls “the Chessbase generation”, i.e that wave of players who learnt the game with a computer and followed the calculations of Fritz, Rybka or Houdini, the best engines through the years, Maxime has become an outstanding tactician who calculates certainly as well as his other friends born in 1990.

Having begun new collaborations with experienced trainers, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave will surely be able to expand his horizons further enough to soon aim for the world's Top 10. The French team championship, held in May 2011, might have been the tournament of adaptation to this new style. Biel could bring definite recognition.

A.V.
(N.D.)