Bloody Biel!

International Chess Festival in Biel

Round Three

Video Recap

ready for action!

Another fantastic round that made the tournament much closer than it already was. After only three rounds every player in the tournament has won a game. MVL takes the lead as every single person with 1.5/2 lost their games!

First of all Alexander Motylev essayed some unusual early c4 idea in the Berlin against Pentala Harikrishna. This didn't really give White much of an advantage. However a big mistake by the Indian player allowed Motylev to nearly trap the Black's bishop on an open board. This cost Harikrishna a pawn and eventually the game.

Alexander Motylev showed great technique finishing off Pentala Harikrishna

Meanwhile Anish Giri played a very long game against Radoslaw Wojtaszek. The Dutch player started the game with powerful play, positionally outplaying his Polish opponent. Slowly it seemed that Black's position just became worse and worse and worse, but out of nowhere Giri let his attention slip and Wojtaszek found counterchances. He even had a brilliant draw at some point in the endgame (see the annotations below) but he was unable to find it. Exhaustion must have gotten to him as he blundered again in a difficult to win endgame and Anish Giri collected his first point of the tournament.

Giri picked up a very important point, especially for morale

Radoslaw Wojtaszek made mistakes after many, many hours of play

Finally it was Hou Yifan's turn to fall as she was outplayed in another long game by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. In a closed Sicilian, that resembled a Spanish much more than any Sicilian, it seemed that the Frenchman simply had a better grasp of how to play the position. Black's powerful queen and knight duo overpowered the opponent's and White found herself without moves. This puts MVL in the lead with 2.0/3 and the only undefeated player in the tournament.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave slayed the Women's World Champion in a very slow game

A view of the playing stage with the open section in the background

Yanick Pelletier and Danny King do not approve of this move...

Meanwhile GM Sam Shankland, who is playing the open section, talks about his imepending switch to soccer (football?)

Daniel King shows his highlights of round 3

Replay Round Three Games

Select from the dropdown menu to replay the games

Standings

Schedule

Links Official tournament site Download Games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.