Biel: MVL clinches, Wojtaszek second

International Chess Festival in Biel

Round Ten

Video Recap

The last round of Biel was, as usual, hard fought. Pentala Harikrishna continued his use of unusual set-ups against the Najdorf and again got no advantage from the opening. However, he managed to outplay Hou Yifan in a very long game. The Chinese player missed a couple of important moments to equalize, and once these were gone she had to sacrifice an exchange and that was sufficient advantage for the Indian player to take home the full point and tie for third with Hou Yifan herself and Anish Giri.

The Women's World Champion can be happy despite her last round loss; she raked a full 15 rating points!

Pentala Harikrishna shared third with his last round win

Speaking of Giri, he played a Classical Sicilian against Alexander Motylev who used the Rauzer Attack against it. Despite the fancy sounding name of this opening somehow it petered out to a quick repetition.

Anish Giri made a comeback to tie for third in the last few games

Final round and final analysis!

Last but not least Maxime Vachier-Lagrave had to draw to secure at least a share of first (in case that Hou Yifan won) and he had almost no problems doing so after he traded off all the pieces in a Najdorf and, despite losing a pawn, his good knight against bad bishop allowed him to draw the endgame comfortably.

Replay Round Ten 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.