Biel Rd3 - Giri takes lead; Morozevich drops out

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 three

The playing hall with the top GM players on stage, and a number of others in the main Open

The news of the day was Alexander Morozevich’s withdrawal from Biel after two rounds. To the Doubting Thomases who might think his 0-2 start was in any way related, it bears mentioning that this sort of incident is rare to the extreme. In the past, players have played under duress, oblivious of their health, even playing in a hotel room (supervised), or in the most extreme case on record: Miles played on a stretcher, despite terrible pain, in the actual playing area. One can only hope for a swift recovery from whatever ails him.

In his stead, Viktor Bologan will come to replace him, including the third round game against Magnus Carlsen, to be played on Sunday July 29, the rest day. We caught up with Viktor, regarding the sudden replacement.

Viktor Bologan – I still consider that I have good chances for a top place, but it will be difficult.

I am more concerned with helping the situation than earning something especial. I respect the organizers from Biel very much, and have known them for many years.

Anish Giri explained that his particular opening preparation was also in tribute to Loek
Van Wely, the top Dutch player for so many years.

Even though there were only two games left out of the three, the spectators had nothing to be disappointed about as both were bloody exciting battles.  Anish Giri won his second game with superb opening preparation against Etienne Bacrot. It was a highly unusual King’s Indian, in which Anish took up the torch of Loek Van Wely’s treatment of White’s side, and showed how viable it is.

Anish Giri has had a near perfect start

The result was still a very exciting game which ended up with a highly unusual double pawn roller in the center deciding the point. Anish Giri takes the early lead, though without Carlsen’s game, it is not 100% clear.

Anish Giri reviews his game, and explain the unusual white setup  

It was a grueling game for the Chinese player, having to recalculate the possible
sacrifices at every turn.

Nakamura has had an uneven start with some uneven games, but all very entertaining

Wang Hao and Hikaru Nakamura played a truly wild game in which Wang Hao had tactical themes against e6 and f7 throughout most of the game, while Hikaru Nakamura sought to neutralize White’s options and cash in on the weaknesses. Things seemed to be working for the American as the Chinese player was unable to find a decisive sacrifice in his favor, having to calculate it quite literally every single move, when suddenly Nakamura slipped and White’s pieces came down on the central pawns.

Wang Hao still a bit dazed, together with the ultra-friendly GM Klaus Bischoff

Wang Hao analyzes the highly complicated game, clearly very tired from the battle

Traditional standings after three rounds

Three-point standings after three rounds

Pictures by Pascal Simon

Live GM commentary on Playchess

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

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.

• You can watch the live coverage of Biel 2012 in your browser here

Overview: schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN 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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