5 min readUpdated: Mar 20, 2026 09:06 PM IST
French grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has put India’s R Praggnanandhaa in the third tier in his ‘tier-list’ for the upcoming Candidates tournament where he has analysed and ranked all the eight players in the open Candidates event.
The French grandmaster made the comments in a conversation on the Chess with Mustreader YouTube channel, where he also accepted that his opinion about Pragg was a bit of a “hot take”. Vachier-Lagrave started his tier list by pointing out that he did not “discount anyone” winning the title, pointing out that if the Candidates were held 25 times with the same set of players, all of the eight players would win the event at least once.
Before we get to what Vachier-Lagrave said about Pragg, here’s a look at his tier list (where S is favourite while A, B and C are in descending order of chances the players have of winning the Candidates according to Vachier-Lagrave):
Here is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s tier list:
Tier S: Fabiano Caruana
Tier A: Wei Yi, Anish Giri
Tier B: Javokhir Sindarov, Praggnanandhaa
Tier C: Matthias Bluebaum, Andrey Esipenko
What was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s ‘hot-take’ about Praggnanandhaa?
Vachier-Lagrave said that Praggnanandhaa’s case to be placed on the tier-list was “hard to judge”.
“It’s harsh because you know that skill-wise, if we were in the first six or eight months of 2025 right now, Pragg would have been at S tier,” Vachier-Lagrave pointed out. “Praggnanandhaa had a great year in 2025, but I think from the FIDE Grand Swiss onwards, things started to get out of hand a bit. He had a tough Grand Swiss, tough FIDE World Cup, tough Grand Chess Tour Finals as well. While he had been so convincing especially in the classical portions in Bucharest and St. Louis, I think he’s had a tough Wijk aan Zee as well.
“I’m really not convinced from his Wijk performance. And Wijk can do some damage also. There’s only two months between the end of Wijk and the Candidates starting. And in general he’s not in a good spiral. If I have the guarantee that he will manage to find the key to break that spiral, I would put him at S tier. But now I’m going to put him in the B tier. That’s how important I think current form is,” the Frenchman added.
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WATCH: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave’s tier-list
“It’s a hot take but it’s been 6 months and his form has really not been great. It can happen but you know I’m also taking into account the fact that he’s only 20 years old. You know it does take something special to break out of this spiral. It could just be about the first games if he feels well if he wins a couple of them. But you could see for instance the most likely outcome is that out of four games he makes two points out of four. I don’t see Praggnanandhaa winning the Candidates if he has two out of four. But I could see some other players like Fabi (Caruana) winning the Candidates if he’s on two out of four. It’s harsh, I understand. I mean it’s definitely top of the B tier. It’s between A and B tier but you have to make some choices anyway. You cannot put everyone at A and S tier,” Vachier-Lagrave added.
While addressing concerns that Praggnanandhaa’s form might be because he played too much chess and was physically exhausted, Vachier-Lagrave pointed out: “Of course it’s part of the reasons that he played so much and racked up so many points, and maybe he has recovered physically now. But as I know from experience—and I mean from my own experience and experience of other players—it’s not about just one bad Wijk now. It’s about six months of tournaments that were far from his best and to detach yourself from six months of so-so results is not easy. I mean skill-wise obviously Praggnanandhaa can win it. Yeah I make the choice and you know I would be happy for Praggnanandhaa if he proves me wrong and that he plays at his best level because in general I want everyone in the candidates to play at the best level.”
