 Maxime Voscher-Lagrab goes into round 10 with 6.5 points, that puts him in a must win situation in the last round of the Gibraltar Masters. We'll find out whether he can do it or not tomorrow. For now, he joins us in our studio. Maxime, a win in round 9 here at the Gibraltar Masters, it looked pleasant for you, but was it... how bad was it for Black? Yeah, I didn't think it was all that bad, but definitely on the unpleasant side after we went to the endgame. I'm not sure he had to go D5, because I was not exactly sure what I was doing. I didn't remember any of my nods, as always. Just some move then. Yeah, that's the usual. Have you been having some late nights? Not really, I mean, no more than usual, but the thing is I actually didn't want to play this time, and then when I came to the board, I saw Veselin next to me, and he played that exact line three or four days ago against Cotronias, and I was like, yeah, it's actually a good line. I'm stupid not to have thought about it, so I played it without checking things. So, you're telling us this was just over the board, just looking... No, I mean, I knew this line, but I forgot to wish... You were inspired over the board by sitting next to Veselin. Yeah. All right. So, Qh4 on Nd5, and here, I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure if King takes d8 with the ideas that Nd5, Bd5, and now you protect a6. I wasn't sure that was so clear, because, for instance, Nae4, maybe already you have some Nf4, Bf3, and I don't know, some N95, I thought I'm probably going to be better at the end, but it didn't look that obvious. But d8 also feels like a hand move. Yeah, but this position, it's an isolated pawn, and importantly, also the pawn on a6 is always an issue, so the bishop on B7 is really, really restricted. So, for now, my pieces are not really developed, but it goes out quite nice. And I think it's just slightly better. So, the problem with rook d8 is that he's forced to create this isolated pawn because of the a6 weakness. Yeah, and after Qh8, Qh1, I was thinking maybe he should go Qh4, try to get active counterplay right away. But I wanted Bd2 to answer Qh8 with Bd3 and get into the sand game. Yeah. Take, take, take. And it's definitely a bit better, but for instance, after N95, it's maybe not such a big deal. I probably have to go Bd2 back. At some point, I may have a5, but again, I'm still playing against this bishop. So, is this the kind of position you just play on forever? Yes, something like this. So, he went Nf8 and I don't like it because of the a5, N96ab. The point is, he cannot really take on f4, Nc5, Ne2, Qf1. It looks like he has Bc6, but then I'll just take Bb5 and Nd3. And it does get the pawn B6 back, but it's not a pawn done, but I'll just go B3, making it to D4, D5, Nx6. Still unpleasant, yes. No, more than unpleasant. Probably just lost. So, Bb6, Bb2 and I would, yeah, I had this move, Bb3, he cannot take on B2 because it would be one and... After I ask you, how are you evaluating, what is the evaluation of this ending while you're playing on the board for you? Clearly better. Clearly better. Okay, I just played some random moves for a while, so I don't know, apparently with Tx6 was possible for me, but I didn't want to help his pawn structure. And for a while, I was looking like I was making a lot of progress. So, yeah, I think he should have played h5 at some point because allowing g4 and f4, yeah, just one nice line is if Bb6 and g5, of course. So, he played against this, but it's always a difficult decision when you're in pressure to go h6 or h5 when... Yeah, and here, finally, I found some good moves because I threatened Bd4 and if I exchange Txb6, it's almost over. Like, I'm doing one move to d4, the other move to a5, and then my king, over. But he went Bd5 and after Bd4, yes, f6. And my first intention was actually going back and to, I mean, because I created a weakness, but then I realized after Bxc3, Bd2, he has d4. And suddenly my works feel a bit misplaced and I mean, he can create an attack on the e-file by rook e7, rook e6, Sheton's rook e1 made. Yeah. So, I thought for a bit and I saw that I could play with b4 with the idea of rook a5, if Bd6 rook back to a4 and then it's the pawn on d5, so... If Bd6, you go rook a... No, he went Bd6. And I went rook b6. I mean, I said rook a4, one by rook was on a5. And here, yeah, Bb4, Bb3. So, he went for this d4 to get maybe some counterplay on my pawns on the king side. And Bb7, but here I found some nice lines. So, rook a4, rook d6. Here I wasn't so sure, because I can go king e2, but then he goes g5 and he creates counterplay for life against this pawn on f3. So, king f2, rook d7, let's say. Let's try and get that. Yeah, if I take on a6, he takes, he takes on f4, and some d3 at some point. That was not to my taste. I thought I'll go h4. And here, yeah, he helped me quite a bit. I was not exactly sure about a move like this. I know h5. If I take, he takes, then king g6, king f5 comes very fast. So, I thought I was going... No, exactly no. No, I was going to go g5. He takes, I take, then king d3. And I think this should be winning, but... Yeah, you're going to get the default pawn. Yeah. But importantly, of course, when I play, I would take d5, go for h4 as well. I'm going to go k6, king d3, bishop d3, rook d4. But after bishop c8, I find this nice line, f5, if he takes, rook c4 wins. So, he won bishop this one. Now, rook b4. Again, fgf, now it's rook b7, rook c6, for instance, bishop f5. Take, take. I threatened bishop f4, he has to go king g8. Yeah. And I'll take... H6, right. Yeah, h5, and over. So, bishop b6, but by now, yeah. Bishop f4, he has to go e5, rook c6, bishop e4. And then you want to fork pawn, finally. And eventually, the game. A really nice technical grind. Yeah, it felt like a decent game. I was not sure about a couple of decisions, but it's impossible in this kind of positions to get, you know, to prevent black from having any, any sort of counterplay. So, I think I gave him as little as I could. Well, that's good. And now, going into the final round, you have 6.5 points. That kind of puts you in a a must-win kind of a position for a good finish tomorrow? Definitely. So, I'll wait for my pairing. I'm hoping that my opponent will also be in a fighting mood and we'll see how he goes. All right, we wish you all the best for tomorrow's crucial game and hopefully we'll have you back with us here. Thank you.