Vachier Lagrave crushed in critical game

Maxime’s opening CRASHES & BURNS

Despite Vachier Lagrave’s extensive praxis in the opening line that occurred today, the Azerbaijan superstar clearly demonstrated the drawbacks to his pet line and by move 11 Vachier Lagrave must have known that the struggle was already lost.

Radjabov did his homework better than the French superstar. Known for his limited but well worked out opening repetoire, the realization that Vachier Lagrave had been playing an inferior line for so long without ever having being punished for it — and then to lose without a fight today — in perhaps the most important game of his life up to now…what more can one say?

This loss clearly must have been painful for the Frenchman. If there is a lesson to be drawn from this, then it might be this: one should not play in the classic time controls what one can get away with at the faster time controls!?

In the meantime, the Chinese stars Yu and Ding drew a boring game. Tomorrow they will play the tiebreak to see which one will meet Radjabov in the finals.

gm Radjabov – gm Vachier Lagrave
World Cup r6.g2 27.9.2019
1-0