Maxime Vachier-Lagrave scored another 2.5 points on the last day of the Tata Steel Chess India Rapid to win the event with a round to spare. Teimour Radjabov took second place, 1.5 points back, while after a day of intense fights, Praggnanandhaa, Alexander Grischuk and Vidit finished in a tie for the third on five points each.

Tania Sachdev and Robert Hess commentated on the day's action.

Replay all the Tata Steel Chess Indian Open Rapid games.

Vachier-Lagrave's Relaxed Play

Commentator Robert Hess mentioned during the live broadcast that Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was a rare player in the tournament who would get up during the games to have a look at the other games or just to stretch his legs. Everyone else, with the exception of Grischuk, would be rooted to their chairs, preferring to concentrate on their games in such a short time control. Over the board too, he exhibited the airs of a consummate professional—relaxed, composed but concentrated.

On the last day of the rapid tournament, he brought the same attitude to his moves too. Following up on his excellently played endgame in the fourth round against Vincent Keymer, he once again won a complicated endgame against Arjun Erigaisi.

Such a big shift from playing the Sicilian Najdorf to the Petroff, is it to make his play stylistically more solid?

And this mastery in endgames, how did it happen?

In both his wins, Vachier-Lagrave's play wasn't flawless, but the opponents cracked under the stress, facing sustained pressure.

With Harikrishna, Vachier-Lagrave played purely strategically from the opening phase.

Before playing 28...Bf5??, Harikrishna calculated for more than three minutes, the final half a minute with head bowed down indicating blind visualization, and played it in a flourish. The move came as a surprise for Vachier-Lagrave also.

But Vachier-Lagrave's reply came within a minute, indicating the fluency of his calculation to find such an important resource in quick time, and consequently his good form in the tournament.

Opening Explorations

There were more opening surprises on the third day too, and one of the most jaw-dropping moves of the day came from Alexander Grischuk: in the well-known 4.f3 variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defense, he shocked his opponent with a move that has almost never been played before, 4...Ba5.

What?!

Afterward, when Keymer quizzed about his intentions behind the move, the enigmatic Grischuk revealed a large body of analysis that went behind producing it.

So, however unhinged an opening deviation might look, nothing gets played before getting thoroughly analyzed.

Grischuk, the jaw-dropper | photo: Vivek Sohani, Tata Steel Chess India

The game between Arjun and Vachier-Lagrave described above itself produced a puzzling sequence of moves in the opening by Black.

For 5...Qd7!?, Arjun came up with 6.Nd4!? and Vachier-Lagrave nonchalantly answered 6...Qe7!?

But it turned out that Arjun had already played this position, and Vachier-Lagrave's confidence in adopting the variation came from having a predecessor in Fabiano Caruana.

So, you can play such moves confidently when you have illustrious predecessors who have adopted them before.

Praggnanandhaa produced one on the third move too, along such lines: 3.Be2.

But, after nine moves, a perfectly acceptable Sicilian Scheveningen appeared on the board, which goes to prove that Praggnanandhaa always knew what he was doing.

So, sometimes the world might not understand the logic behind your move, but it's perfectly fine if you know what you are doing.

Overall, we are getting wiser.

The Young Fighters

Unlike Vachier-Lagrave, Teimour Radjabov had three draws on the day to claim his second place in the tournament. Toward the end of the last round, Radjabov joined Viswanathan Anand and Hess at the commentary box after his short draw against Vachier-Lagrave, and it was pure joy watching them let their hair down and have fun. All of them were in such good sync and mood that it consisted of many hearty waves of laughter and light-hearted ribbing of Radjabov the streamer.

During the commentary, Radjabov did come up with insights on the field assembled, with so many top young players of the world:

How did he see his result?

The technical part of chess, what did he think he did well?

Radjabov happy obliging the fans | photo: Maria Emelianova, Chess.com

And to the most important question of whether he saw any similarity in the youngsters here? Stylistically or technically, just because they are young?

The play of the younglings was the most awaited spectacle of this tournament. There were many uncompromising fights, and they went all out for wins whomever their opponents were. There were many delightful examples of such play, the best being the one between the youngster who upstaged Anand as the highest-rated Indian player after 37 years and the one who went to the very top of the 2023 FIDE World Cup to challenge Magnus Carlsen in the final.

Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa did not disappoint the fans, as they produced a brilliant clash, and the finishing stages of the game produced a rare and pleasing sight.

After a pseudo-sacrifice of his queen, Gukesh managed to advance two of his pawns to the seventh rank of the board, reminiscent of the romantic era of chess. This is our Game Of The Day, annotated by GM Rafael Leitao.

Gukesh—recreating the romantic era | photo: Maria Emelianova, Chess.com

Nodirbek Abdusattorov produced a profound and only winning move even while short on time.

With only the final seconds remaining on his clock, Abdusattorov found the only way to win the position with 55.Kf5! when the natural 55.Kxe5? would have resulted in a draw. The logic was that, in the upcoming pawn ending, White needed to have the g-passer on the board to win the game.

Abdusattorov—brilliant even with seconds remaining on the clock | photo: Vivek Sohani, Tata Steel Chess India

The final standings looked as follows.

Tata Steel Chess India still has two more days, and 18 rounds of blitz, to go. Watch all the action here on chess24 from 5:30am ET/11:30 CEST/3pm IST!