From July 12 to 26, 2024, the Swiss town of Biel hosted its traditional chess festival for the 57th time. The two GM tournaments (“Masters” and “Challengers”), with six players each, once again featured a triathlon of rapid games, classical chess and blitz, after an initial tournament in fast-paced chess960 serving if necessary as a tie-breaker.
In the Masters, Armenia’s Haik Martirosyan was in the lead after the rapid section. This was followed by five rounds of classical chess. With victory rewarded by 4 points, the duels were fiercely contested:
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After 56…♜xd6! 57.♔xd6 f4 in Keymer,V – Le,Q 0-1 the ♟♟ passed were unstoppable – Le Quang Liem provides a detailed analysis of the game in CBM #221!
After the blitz tournament, the four players who still had a mathematical chance of winning the overall title faced off with colors reversed from the classic round robin. On the second day, Le Quang Liem beat Praggnanandhaa with black pieces to claim his third consecutive Biel Triathlon victory – the tournament format clearly suits the Vietnamese player!
In the Challengers final round, Saleh Salem won ahead of Donchenko and the surprising Rameshbabu Vaishal, who, like her brother in the Masters, finished third.
Alexander Donchenko comments on his victory over 2023 Junior World Champion Marc Andria Maurizzi:
“In this critical position, I found the only way to maintain my advantage: 33.♘xg7 ♞xg7 34.♘f4 The appeal of ♘xg7 is that it allows the other ♘ to enter the game quickly while cutting off the ♛’s access to h2.” Donchenko won the game in the resulting endgame, which proved very important in the final score.
If you subscribe to CBM via download, you already have full access to CBM #221 as a ChessBase book. Simply log in to ChessBase Books with your ChessBase account. If you purchased CBM #221 on DVD, unlock the ChessBase book in the same place using your book’s serial number (on page 2).
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