Tiebreaks: Vachier -Lagrave wins Biel 2013

GM Tournament in memoriam Olivier Breisacher

The GM tournament this year was in memory of Olivier Breisacher, who for more than 15 years looked after the organisation, reporting and external communications around the grandmasters tournament in Biel. The tournament was a ten-round double round robin, played from July 22nd to August 1st.

Playoffs

In Biel the games were scored at three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. According to this "soccer" system, which is official in this tournament, the standings are:

Since four players finished with the same number of points, there had to be tiebreaks, beginning with blitz semi-finals (two games with 5’+2’). Here is what happened:

Etienne Bacrot lost both of his blitz games in the semi-finals...

... as did Chinese GM Ding Liren

After this the two winners played in the final, which consisted of two rapid games – 15 minutes for all moves, with a 10 second increment per move (with tiebreak blitz and Armageddon to follow if necessary).

Ukrainian GM Alexander Moiseenko in the first rapid game of the final against ...

... GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France

Moiseenko loses the first game and draws the second, which means that ...

French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is the winner of Biel 2013

The three winners: Moiseenko (second), Vachier-Lagrave (first) and Bacrot (third)

Replay all games of the playoff

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Interview with the winner of the 2013 Biel GMT - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Thanks

We thank the organiser in Biel and the sponsors of the event for the close and friendly cooperation with ChessBase, which enabled us to provide extraordinary coverage and test new techniques. We also thank GM Daniel King and Pascal Simon whose three to five minute video summaries gave us a feel for what had happened in each round of the Biel GM tournament. We look forward to continued partnership with the organisation in the coming years.

Photos by Pascal Simon for ChessBase

Schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN + Tiebreak games The games were 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.