Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

French GM

“I think it’s on you if you don’t know Sindarov by now. He hasn’t been playing Grand Chess Tour, but of course, when it comes to his playing strength, I’ve recognized him as soon as 2021. First of all, in the World Cup, he won his match with Alireza. That was a big sensation, especially because he knocked him out in rapids.

But even more importantly, a little story from my side. We were playing the Grand Swiss in 2021 in Riga. And what happened is this was COVID times. We were under a curfew and we had a launch where lots of chess players would gather every evening. And there was not much to do. So, we would give each other puzzles.

And Javokhir was extremely impressive, to say the least, when it came to solving some of the puzzles. Some of them I knew were tough. Some I couldn’t solve myself. But Sindarov — he was what, 15? — he solved them very, very well. imagine at 15, he was solving puzzles with the world’s top players…

I noticed it. There were many strong players there — Nodirbek, Fedoseev, Parham — a huge number of strong chess players. But his performance was the standing out.”