7/17/2024 – Chess prodigy Abhimaynu Mishra scored a major victory in the first round of classical chess at the Masters Triathlon in Biel, as he managed to take down elite GM Praggnanandhaa with the black pieces. Defending champion Le Quang Liem beat Vincent Keymer to grab the lead in the standings. Meanwhile in the Challengers, all three games ended decisively. Alexander Donchenko, who beat Ihor Samunenkov, is the sole leader in this section. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival
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Le grabs the lead
Press release by the Biel Chess Festival
Chess prodigy Abhimaynu Mishra came up trumps at the GMT-Masters in Biel. In the first round of classical chess, Abhimanyu scored a major victory: with black, he defeated Praggnanandhaa, the tournament's No. 1 and the world's No. 8. He thus moved up to third place in the standings, which saw Le Quang Liem replacing Haik Martirosyan at the top. While the latter drew with Sam Shankland, the Vietnamese player defeated Vincent Keymer to take over the top spot.
Le was able to benefit from Pragg's slip-up, winning the duel between the tournament's No. 2 and 3 seeds against Keymer. As the previous leader Haik Martirosyan drew against Shankland, last year's winner Le took over the lead on the second day of the GMT-Masters, where he is clearly enjoying himself.
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The Vietnamese player is followed by Martirosyan and then Mishra, who proved with his masterpiece against Pragg that he is a force to be reckoned with. After their defeats today, the two 2700 players in the field, Pragg and Keymer, are somewhat surprisingly at the bottom of the table – but thanks to the attractive award of 4 points for a win in classical chess, this could look very different again after the very next round!
The first few minutes of the round | Video: Arne Kaehler for ChessBase
All the games at the GMT Challengers ended with a decisive result in the first round of classical chess, so that the tournament table is already taking on clear contours.
Alexander Donchenko was able to assert himself by beating Ihor Samunenkov in the longest game of the day. He is followed by Saleh Salem, who defeated Marc'Andria Maurizzi, and Vaishali Rameshbabu in third place. Vaishali, the player with the lowest Elo rating among the participants in the Challengers, proved with her victory against top seed Jonas Bjerre that, as the only woman in the tournament, she will keep up the pace with her male competitors.
In this Fritztrainer: “Attack like a Super GM” with Gukesh we touch upon all aspects of his play, with special emphasis on how you can become a better attacking player.
The second day of the Master Tournament MTO already showed that numerous strong players from the second tier will draw attention to themselves and demand everything from the tournament favourites.
The three top seeded players all drew their games and two grandmasters even had to leave the board as losers against lower-rated opponents: GM Sethuraman from India lost to the young Austrian FM Lukas Dotzer, while Romanian GM David Gavrilescu was defeated by the Indonesian IM Irine Sukander.
After two rounds, there are now 15 participants with perfect scores.
When so many games are played daily, it is inevitable that a few particularly outstanding encounters take place. To highlight these games, the organisers of the Biel Chess Festival have created the Beauty Award.
Every evening after the rounds are over, the most attractive game from the MTO, HTO and ATO can be voted for on the festival's social media channels. The winners will present their game on the live stream the following day and receive a small gift.
In this video course, experts including Dorian Rogozenco, Mihail Marin, Karsten Müller and Oliver Reeh, examine the games of Boris Spassky. Let them show you which openings Spassky chose to play, where his strength in middlegames were and much more.
GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
GM Blohberger presents a complete two-part repertoire for Black: practical, clear, and flexible – instead of endless theory, you’ll get straightforward concepts and strategies that are easy to learn and apply.
Opening videos: Sipke Ernst brings the Ulvestad Variation up to date + Part II of ‘Mikhalchishin's Miniatures’. Special: Jan Werle shows highlights from the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025 in the video. ‘Lucky bag’ with 40 analyses by Ganguly, Illingworth et al.
In this video course, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov explores the fascinating world of King’s Indian and Pirc structures with colours reversed, often arising from the French or Sicilian.
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