Vachier-Lagrave Takes the Lead in Paris

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave took the lead in the Paris Rapid & Blitz with a phenomenal 2.5/3 today. The rest of the players will be under the heat for more than just one reason. Vachier-Lagrave first took down Dutch #1 Anish Giri in a tricky minor piece endgame, then dethroned leader Fabiano Caruana in another nice endgame to take the sole lead. Here are both wins, annotated by Chess.com's Peter Doggers and Dejan Bojkov.

Both leaders (Caruana and India's #1 Viswanathan Anand) didn't do nearly as well as day one as Caruana put up a disastrous 0.5/3 and Anand wasn't able to win any games either with a mere 1.5/3. Young talent Jan-Krzysztof Duda was one of the beneficiaries of those performances, jumping to a tie for second with Anand. Here is Duda's win against Azerbaijan's top player Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, also annotated by Peter Doggers.

Finally, here are all the games of the round compiled into one viewer.

This development also sees MVL jump to 2nd in the projected Grand Chess Tour standings, while Caruana falls to fourth.