7/24/2012 – It was another action-packed round as Magnus Carlsen built up a huge attack against Wang Hao to score his first win. Giri and Nakamura had a tense tussle, but drew, while Bacrot found himself in a double-edged opening against Morozevich with as many as three pawns down, but excessive optimism by the Russian allowed Bacrot to finish in beauty. Illustrated report with video analysis.
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The
2012 Biel Chess Festival is taking place from July 23rd to August 2nd, in a number of
groups: the Master Tournament (eleven rounds Swiss); the Main Tournament (nine
rounds Swiss); a Rapid and a Blitz tournament; Chess960; Youth, Simultaneous,
Chess Tennis, ChessBase training seminars. Of greatest interest is of course
the Accentus Grandmaster Tournament with six very strong grandmasters playing
a double round robin: Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Alex. Morozevich,
Wang Hao, Etienne Bacrot and Anish Giri.
Hikaru Nakamura, Etienne Bacrot, Magnus Carlsen, Wang Hao, Anish Giri and
Alex Morozevich
The rate of play: 40 moves in 100 minutes, then 20 moves in 50 minutes followed by 15 minutes for
the rest of the game, with 30 sec increment per move. The scoring system is
three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. No draw offers are
permitted before move 30.
Round two
Round 2: Tuesday, July 24, 14:00h
Hikaru Nakamura
½-½
Anish Giri
Etienne Bacrot
1-0
Alex. Morozevich
Magnus Carlsen
1-0
Wang Hao
If you thought the action would slow in round two, think again. The first game to end was the tense battle between Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Giri. Hikaru’s queen penetrated the queenside, but was under constant danger of being harried by Giri’s rooks. He solved the problem by exchanging it off, but the ensuing position held no winning chances for either and they shook hands.
Anish Giri presents his thoughts during the post-mortem
Nakamura has his doubts
Giri and Nakamura review their tussle. It is reassuring to see even the players unsure.
Namakura: "Either I'm much better, or Anish is completely fine."
The wildest game by far was between Etienne Bacrot and Alexander Morozevich. The opening looked especially strange considering the players. Its extremely double-edged nature, involving multiple pawn sacrifices would look perfectly normal were it the Russian doing the sacrificing, but it was the other way around! Bacrot later explained that he had known the line could turn up, but preparing against such a maverick made it impossible to truly cover the bases and he spent enormous amounts of time trying to calculate his way out of the maze.
If the game was a rollercoaster for the audience, imagine what it was like for the players,
yet Etienne Bacrot kept his cool and was rewarded in the end.
When he was down three pawns, it seemed clear he would be fortunate to walk away with a draw, but in mutual time trouble, Morozevich became overly optimistic and suddenly was lost. Bacrot played the end to perfection, even finding a ‘cool move’ as he describes in the post-mortem (and it was a cool move) not to mention his lovely coup de grace ending the game in beauty.
Etienne Bacrot analyzes his game in the post-mortem
Magnus Carlsen came alone to the post-mortem, which was followed live by the hordes
on Playchess. It can be viewed by Premium subscribers in the commentary channel by Klaus Bischoff.
The last game to end was Magnus Carlsen against Wang Hao. Wang Hao, who had enjoyed a completely misplayed opening by his opponent in the first round, made a mess of his own opening against Carlsen, far from ideal against the strongest player alive. Somehow he never managed to regain his equilibrium and he followed this up by various weakening moves around his kingside that soon saw the Norwegian’s pieces swarming around it. The pressure mounted and he buckled, unable to keep his position together.
Wang Hao did exchange notes with Carlsen though
And Magnus then exchanged notes with his personal manager, Henrik Carlsen (dad)
Magnus Carlsen explains for the last ten years he has felt Black's line to be
a mistake
There is live audio and video commentary on the chess server Playchess.
The English commentary starts at 3:30 p.m., and German commentary directly from
the playing site begins at 4:00 p.m. In addition Yasser Seirawan is doing round-up
shows at 8:00 p.m. on the days he is commenting.
Commentary schedule
Monday
23/07/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Yasser Seirawan
Tuesday
24/07/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Yasser Seirawan
Wednesday
25/07/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Yasser Seirawan
Friday
26/07/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Yasser Seirawan
Saturday
27/07/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Yasser Seirawan
Monday
28/07/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Yasser Seirawan
Tuesday
30/07/2011
Klaus Bischoff
Oliver Reeh
Wednesday
31/07/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Oliver Reeh
Thursday
1/08/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Sam Collins
Friday
2/08/2012
Klaus Bischoff
Sam Collins
As a special treat the multimedia commentary live from Biel is also available
on our live browser coverage. This also includes the players analysing after
their games.
The games are being 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
11 or any of our Fritz
compatible chess programs.
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