Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's chess, by the numbers
November 12, 2026 · 73 classical games, August 2025 to October 2026, from the Sinquefield Cup 2025 to the Bundesliga
Vachier-Lagrave's 73 classical games from August 2025 to October 2026, from the Sinquefield Cup 2025 to the Bundesliga, every move checked by Stockfish, counted the way anyone's games are. Here is what the count found.
Vachier-Lagrave is playing the Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot in Budapest from November 10 to 20, 2026, in a group with Wesley So. The group games there are fast classical, 45 minutes and 30 seconds a move, and are not counted here. This page counts the 15 months before it: 73 classical games across the Sinquefield Cups of 2025 and 2026, the FIDE Grand Swiss, the Grand Chess Tour Finals 2025, the World Cup, a six-game match with Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, the Superbet Classic Romania, the Olympiad and two seasons of the Bundesliga, every move checked by the engine, with the same questions a club player's games get asked.
How they play
Every player gets one of four profiles from two measures: how often they force matters with a check or a capture, against what the position asks for, and how rarely one of their pieces is left loose. Vachier-Lagrave sits over the forcing line at 56 (the line is at 52), and their pieces are almost never loose (97 of 100; the line is at 64): the Striker, a little more forcing than the position asks for, with the pieces kept safe. Carlsen's rapid games sit in the same corner (55 and 94); So's classical games sit across the line (50 and 100). Accuracy is 94 of 100, and the average loss per move against the engine's choice was 0.09 of a pawn: 0.04 in the opening, 0.10 in the middlegame and 0.10 in the endgame.
When the best move was a hard one, they found it every time.
1,676 of 1,676 times the best move was a sacrifice, a retreat, a declined recapture or a quiet move, they played it
The reports keep count of the moves club players miss most: a sacrifice, a retreat, declining a recapture. In Vachier-Lagrave's 73 classical games, when the best move was a sacrifice (24 times), a retreat (265), a declined recapture (57) or a quiet move (1,330), they played it every time: 1,676 of 1,676. No other classical report on this site has all four rows at 100%. The nearest: So, with one retreat missed in 283 and three quiet moves in 1,312 across 66 games; Praggnanandhaa, 417 retreats of 417 and 2,017 quiet moves of 2,022 across 108.
57 of 73 classical games were drawn.
78% of 73 classical games drawn: 10 wins, 57 draws, 6 losses
Vachier-Lagrave won 10 of the 73 classical games, drew 57 and lost 6. With the white pieces: 8 wins, 28 draws and 2 losses in 38. With the black pieces: 2 wins, 29 draws and 4 losses in 35. The field: a median opponent rated 2666, 53 games against players within 100 points (5 wins, 44 draws, 4 losses) and 20 against players 100 or more points lower (5 wins, 13 draws, 2 losses). Against Caruana the five classical games were all drawn; against Praggnanandhaa, four draws and a loss in five.
All 6 classical losses came with no blunder in them.
6 of 6 classical losses had no blunder in them
Vachier-Lagrave lost 6 of the 73 classical games, and in all 6 no single move was a blunder: they were outplayed a little at a time. The engine found no blunder in any of the 73 games. The losses: to Marc'Andria Maurizzi and Shant Sargsyan at the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025, to Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus in the fifth game of their match, to Vincent Keymer at the Superbet Classic Romania 2026, to Praggnanandhaa in 27 moves at the Sinquefield Cup 2026, and to David Navara in the Bundesliga. For scale, Caruana's count is 10 of 11 losses, from 84 games, and Gukesh's 20 of 21, from 79.
Against So: three classical games, three draws.
3 classical games against So since August 2025, all drawn
Vachier-Lagrave and So played three classical games in these 15 months, a small sample, and drew all three: at the Sinquefield Cup 2025 in 45 moves, at the Superbet Classic Romania 2026 in 78, and at the Sinquefield Cup 2026 in 67. Against everyone else rated 2695 to 2815, around So's rating, Vachier-Lagrave scored 52% in 31 games: 3 wins, 26 draws, 2 losses. The two are in the same group in Budapest in November 2026, in fast classical games.
As White, 1.e4 in 32 of 38 games. Against it, the Sicilian in 13 of 16.
84% of 38 classical games as White opened with e4
As White, Vachier-Lagrave opened 1.e4 in 32 of 38 classical games, 1.c4 in 3, 1.d4 in 2 and 1.Nf3 once. As Black against 1.e4 the answer was the Sicilian in 13 of 16 games and 1...e5 in 3; against 1.d4, 1...Nf6 in 12 of 15 and 1...d5 in 3. Nepomniachtchi is the nearest on this site as White, with 1.e4 in 28 of 37.
The full reports
- Vachier-Lagrave's classical report
73 classical games, August 2025 to October 2026: the Sinquefield Cup 2025 (9) and 2026 (9), the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025 (11), the Bundesliga 2025/26 (6) and 2026/27 (3), the Grand Chess Tour Finals 2025 (4), the FIDE World Cup 2025 (6), the Clash of Generations match (6), the Superbet Classic Romania 2026 (9) and the Olympiad 2026 (10), from Lichess's broadcasts. 10 wins, 57 draws, 6 losses. Download the games (PGN)
Each report opens as a deck of slides, one finding to a slide, with the positions behind every number. A blunder is a move that cost 30 or more points of winning chances; winning chances are the engine's estimate of how likely a player is to win, from 0 to 100.
How this was measured
Plysight analyzes games the same way for everyone: Stockfish evaluates every move, and the findings are counted from those evaluations. The reports compare a player with others at their rating where a fair comparison exists; at Vachier-Lagrave's rating there is none, so those lines are left out. Advice lines, written for a player reading their own report, are left out too. Vachier-Lagrave's online blitz is not on this page: it stands on the classical games. The Budapest games of November 2026 are fast classical and are left out. Other players' numbers on this page come from their own pages and reports on this site, the same checks on the same kind of games. The six house words the reports use are defined on the report's last slide.
Classical games from Lichess's broadcasts, August 2025 to October 2026. Plysight is independent of Lichess, chess.com and Vachier-Lagrave. Vachier-Lagrave's FIDE profile. Published November 12, 2026; updated November 12, 2026.
Piece art by Cburnett, CC BY-SA 3.0.