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 nine

It was a tough, hard-fought round, and nerves and fatigue were felt throughout. The first news, as it was on everyone’s mind, is that the mythical 2851 will hold up a tad longer. Anish Giri and Magnus Carlsen drew an uneventful game where the balance barely swayed, much less shook. Strategically, this worked out well for Carlsen, not so much because he was black, but because in the final round, he will be white against Bacrot, while Giri and Hao will face each other, both in a must-win situation if they hope to take over the leader. That said, if Carlsen draws Bacrot, the gold will be wide open.

A slow start, but now he is ahead of the pack going into the last round

The post-mortem with Anish Giri and Magnus Carlsen  

Etienne Bacrot could not be happy today though, as he was doing just fine against Hikaru Nakamura when a dreadful blunder, well past the time control, cost him the game on the spot.

A terrible blunder ended the game for Bacrot in one move. Will he recover in time for
his last round game?

Nakamura analyzes his game with GM Bischoff  

Viktor Bologan finally heaved his chest in relief as he ended his drought. Not only did he win, but he took down the tournament co-leader, and man in form: Wang Hao. Come what may, he will not leave the event without a win to look back upon. For Wang Hao, this actually changed very little in terms of his chances for  gold. He is still dependent on winning his last round game to snatch the top spot from Carlsen. His only problem is that his opponent, Anish Giri, is in exactly the same position.

Viktor Bologan can finally smile

Bologan shares his understanding and experience of the opening  

Nothing is decided yet as the players go into the final round with three still trying to stake their claim.

Traditional standings after nine rounds

Three-point standings after nine 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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