Chessdom: How would you best define your chess style?
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave: I would describe myself as a pure calculator: I almost exclusively calculate lots of variations during my games. However, I have improved my strategical and technical play, but I am still stronger in very complicated positions, and when I need to calculate in endgames. One of my strength (or weakness, I still don't know) is that I may take great risks, but they are very carefully calculated, meaning I can hardly bluff: if I am sure a sac is wrong, even if the refutation is far from being obvious. On the other side, I am more confident when I take risks.
"Marriage has given me the opportunity to travel abroad, however, only after two years of war with the sports committee. In 1978, I became a citizen of France, and at the same time headed the Soviet team at the Chess Olympiad in Argentina. Up until 1983, I played under the Soviet flag and then I won the tournament in Linares ahead of Karpov. Whether this result was the trigger, I do not know, but soon I stopped receiving Soviet salary and invitations to the Soviet tournaments. The same year I issued a brief statement in the French Press Agency, and explained the reasons why I refuse to play under the Soviet flag. In 1984, I played for the first time in French team at the Chess Olympiad in Greece."
Andriasian and Mamedyarov chattingIn his excellent book, Behind The Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football, Jonathan Wilson writes the following: "For me, the Red Star team of 1991 remains the apogee of football - not the best side I have ever seen but the one that best combined the elements I would most want to see in a team I supported: technical brilliance, fluidity, a capacity for moments of staggering flair, supreme organisation, cynicism and a pervading sense of mental fragility." Seldom were these traits more apparent than in the European Cup semi-final bout with Bayern Munich.
After winning the away leg 2-1 thanks to whirlwind counter-attacking, Red Star seemed set to canter into the final when Sinisa Mihajlovic put them 1-0 up early in the home leg with a trademark long-range free-kick. But then, despite the incredible encouragement of 80,000 berzerkers, they lost their nerve - and Bayern came charging back. Klaus Augenthaler made it 1-1 with a long-distance drive before the superbly named Manfred Bender made it 3-3 on aggregate. Bayern almost snatched a winner in normal time but were denied by a post - and then came the dramatic, farcical finale: in the dying seconds Mihajlovic attempted to pick out Darko Pancev at the back post but underhit his cross; Augenthaler went to whack it clear but instead send the ball spinning backwards towards his own goal - where goalkeeper Raimond Aumann should have caught it comfortably ... but instead palmed it pathetically into the net to trigger bonkers scenes of celebration in the Crvena Zvezda Stadium.
