GM Tournament in memoriam Olivier Breisacher

The GM tournament this year is 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 is a ten-round double round robin, played from July 22nd to August 1st, with games starting at 2 p.m. local time.

Round nine report

Summary of round nine by GM Daniel King

These video summaries represent a pioneer effort by GM Daniel King and Pascal Simon to give us a feel for what has happened in each round of the Biel GM tournament. They require just three minutes of your time and should not be missed. We thank our team for providing them just hours after the rounds end.

Play of the day

Biel 2013 Round 9 Play of the Day: Alexander Moiseenko vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

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Alexander Moiseenko in contention for the title ...

... with an impressive win over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Ding Liren in the sole lead according to the Biel scoring system

Etienne Bacrot in second place also in contention for the title

Minus four – is Richard Rapport too young for such a strong event?
Maybe we should wait until he is eighteen?!

Photos by Pascal Simon for ChessBase

Current standings

Note that in Biel the games are scored 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:

Here are the standing according to the traditional 2-1-0 scoring system:

Possible Tiebreaks

• If two players finish with the same amount of points after the 10th and last round (Thursday 1st August 2013), there will be a tie-break on Friday 2nd August.
• The tie-break: two rapid games with 15 minutes, with increase of 10’’/move. If 1-1, two games with 5’+2”. If again 1-1, one Armageddon game with 5’ for white (has to win) and 4’ for black.
• If three players finish with the same amount of points after the last round, the best player according to Sonnenborn-Berger points will be qualified for the tie-break. The two others will make a semi-final in blitz (two games with 5’+2’’; if 1-1, one Armageddon game).
• If four players finish with the same amount of points after the last round, there will be semi-finals in blitz (two games with 5’+2’’; if 1-1, one Armageddon game). The semi-finals will be Player 1- Player 4 and Player 2- Player 3 (according to Sonnenborn-Berger), with 1 and 2 having the priority to choose the colour. Then, the winners make the final, according to Point 2 (rapid and if necessary blitz games).

Note that if Maxime Vachier-Lagrave beats Ding Liren and Bacrot draws Moiseenko, there will be tiebreaks with four players on Friday!

Video analysis with the players

Biel 2013 Round 9: Alexander Moiseenko - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All 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.