Frenchman’s opening skills impress at prestigious Sinquefield Cup as all games drawn in three of the last four rounds
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, 30, France’s top player and the world No 10, edged out three US rivals by half a point on Thursday night to capture the $90,000 first prize at America’s most important international event, the annual Sinquefield Cup in St Louis.
The Sinquefield had begun promisingly with a wave of attacking chess in the first three rounds, but then subsided as all five games in rounds six, eight and nine were drawn. Vachier-Lagrave’s halved final game against Azerbaijan’s Shakhriyar Mamedyarov followed a sequence which contains a
Queen sacrifice and looks spectacular until you consult the database and find 15 exact replicas, the majority played among top grandmasters.