Quiet day in Biel

International Chess Festival in Biel

Round Seven

Video Recap

The open section, with room for the spectators of the Grandmaster Tournament

The big stage, but concentration is high in the open

Despite the aggressive nature of today's games, it seems as if there wasn't enough to spark any really challenging games.

A strange perpetual finished an interesting albeit short game

Alexander Motylev and Pentala Harikrishna drew in a Caro-Kan... Just as Black's king was becoming overly exposed it was the reduced amount of material that saved the Russian player who was able to simplify into a drawn endgame in which the queen certainly did not overpower the two rooks, who gave perpetual check anyways.

Meanwhile Hou Yifan trusted her Ragozin yet again to equalize against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. In a variation that didn't give Black any real trouble it was maybe White that had to be careful at certain points. The resulting opposite colored bishop endgame was an easy draw.

These are the only two people that can be really happy with their tournament so far: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Hou Yifan

Point and a half ahead of the field, and only two rounds to go: MVL!

In the last game of the day Radoslaw Wojtaszek used a long theoretical variation to force an endgame that is marginally better for White, but that was certainly not enough to beat the defense of Anish Giri. The draw was agreed after basically every piece and every pawn came off the board.

Giri defended well today, but he needs more than that to regain the 10 rating points he is losing thus far

The fighting spirit was certainly there, though the game was mostly simplification after simplification

Replay Round Eight Games

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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.