There was a time when France was the dominant power in world chess. When Howard Staunton commenced his remarkable series of match victories in the mid-1840s, his ascent was seen as an assumption of the sceptre wielded by that great 18th-century master of the game, André Danican Philidor. After Philidor came Labourdonnais, who was succeeded by St Amant, and it was Staunton’s annihilation of the French champion at the Café de la Regence in Paris in 1843, which heralded the end of French hegemony over the chessboard.
It is true that Alexander Alekhine, the mighty Russian champion, represented France in the chess Olympiads of the 1930s, but he was anything but a homegrown Francophone. Now though, at last, a true heir to Philidor has emerged in the person of French grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, the victor of the elite tournament in St Louis, where even the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen succumbed to Gallic ingenuity and persistence.
Raymond Keene
Philidor’s heir
issue 26 August 2017
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