Biel: Wins for Le, Esipenko and Abusattorov

by ChessBase
7/20/2022 – With their victories today, Lê Quang Liêm and Andrey Esipenko climbed to first and second places in the Biel Grandmaster Triathlon. Esipenko defeated former leader Gukesh, while Lê prevailed against Keymer. There was also a change of leader in the Ladies’ Quadriathlon, with France’s Margaux Moracchini taking the lead for the first time. | Photos: Biel Chess Festival

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Le Quang Liem retakes the lead

Press release

With their victories today, Lê Quang Liêm and Andrey Esipenko climbed to first and second places in the Biel Grandmaster Triathlon, with 26 and 25½ points respectively. Esipenko defeated former leader Gukesh, while Lê prevailed against Keymer — both victories were far from clear-cut.

There was also a change of leader in the ladies’ Quadriathlon, with France’s Margaux Moracchini taking the lead for the first time.  

In the Master Tournament, a quartet is currently leading the field with 5 out of 6 points.

Biel Chess Festival 2022

A tough field — the Master Tournament

Grave mistakes

Midway through the round, Gukesh had a nice advantage over Esipenko, while his pursuers — Lê and Salem — were in trouble. Thus, the road seemed clear for Gukesh to take a big step towards winning the tournament. Suddenly, the young Indian started to play a series of terrible moves, though, both strategically and tactically, and lost his advantageous position.

The game between Lê and Keymer, which lasted more than six hours, was also eventful. The young German had a slight edge going into the endgame, but got tangled up in the technical position. The tables turned, and the Vietnamese grandmaster was ruthless in conversion!

The ranking changed dramatically: Lê took the lead with 26 points, Esipenko climbed to second place with 25½ points, while Gukesh was relegated to third place with 24 points!

Abdusattorov received a ‘gift’ from Salem, who incorrectly sacrificed a piece too ambitiously and lost in a few moves. Thus, the Uzbek player is closing the gap with the top three, as he now has 22½ points.

Grandmaster triathlon - Standings

Rank Name Games Classical Rapid Blitz Total
1 GM Le Quang Liem 25 8 11 7 26
2 GM Andrey Esipenko 25 10 7 25½
3 GM Dommaraju Gukesh 25 7 24
4 GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov 25 9 8 22½
5 GM Saleh Salem 25 7 8 20½
6 GM Vincent Keymer 25 5 8 17½
7 GM Gata Kamsky 25 7 1 16½
8 GM Arkadij Naiditsch 25 6 2 16½

All games - Classical

 

Find all the games at Live.ChessBase.com: Classical | Rapid | Blitz

DAQ: Changes at the top

In the Ladies’ ACCENTUS Quadriathlon (DAQ), Margaux Moracchini continues her fabulous run in the classical section, as she has so far won all four of her games. Thanks to her victory over Iris Ciarletta, she took the lead of the tournament for the first time!

She is closely followed by French competitor Juliette Cornileau (30½ points after beating Cecila Keymer). In round 4, former leader Yongzhe Zhuang stumbled against her Swiss compatriot Gohar Tamrazyan.

Margaux Moracchini

Margaux Moracchini just before her game against Gohar Tamrazyan

Ladies quadriathlon - Standings

Rank Name Chess960 Classical Rapid Blitz Total
1 Margaux Moracchini 1 16 5 9 31
2 Juliette Cornileau 10 30½
3 Zhuang Yongzhe 10 29½
4 Iris Ciarletta 9 12 28
5 Gohar Tamrazyan 8 25½
6 Laura Sumarriva Paulin 3 7 7 8 25
7 Yulia Avilova 4 3 5 19½
8 Cecilia Keymer 3 3 2* 2 10

* scored by Veronika Kostina

All games - Classical

 

MTO: Alekseenko and Motylev join the lead

In the Master Tournament (MTO), Vikash and Aryan neutralized each other on board 1. Russian GM Kirill Alekseenko took his chance by beating Pranav to join the leaders with 5/6 points. The same feat was achieved by Alexander Motylev, who beat Niclas Huschenbeth to join the leading pack. The Indians are now down to ‘only’ two out of four in the leading group.

Rating favourite Yu Yangyi stumbled again as he made an unbelievable mistake, which cost him the full point against Iniyan. The Chinese player is only at 3½/6, 1½ points behind the leaders. At 4½ points, we find a group of nine players who have not said their last word.

The top scorers among the Swiss representatives, currently with 3½ points each, are Theo Stijve and Gabriel Gaehwiler.

Standings after round 6

Rk. Name Pts.  TB1 
1 Aryan Chopra 5,0 21,5
2 Visakh N R 5,0 19,0
3 Motylev Alexander 5,0 19,0
4 Alekseenko Kirill 5,0 18,5
5 Pranav Anand 4,5 22,0
6 Sargsyan Shant 4,5 21,5
7 Fedoseev Vladimir 4,5 20,0
8 Ganguly Surya Shekhar 4,5 20,0
9 Iniyan P 4,5 19,5
10 Sethuraman S.P. 4,5 19,0
11 Mendonca Leon Luke 4,5 18,5
12 Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo 4,5 18,0
13 Muradli Mahammad 4,5 17,5
14 Lagarde Maxime 4,0 20,5
15 Puranik Abhimanyu 4,0 20,0

...114 players

All available games - Round 6

 

Find all available games at Live.ChessBase.com

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