Looking back: Harikrishna won the Biel Masters

8/8/2013 – We gave the GM tournament in Biel, which provided fighting games, extraordinary coverage. But in the process we neglected the Masters, won by Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna, and the Main tournament, which were held concomitantly. WIM Ioana Smaranda Padurariu played in the former, and also found time to photograph the event and the city in which it was held. Here her big pictorial report.

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Looking back at the Biel Masters

By WIM Ioana Smaranda Padurariu

During the 46th Biel Chess Festival all attention went to the Grandmaster Tournament, in memoriam of Olivier Breisacher. Rightly so, as the games were full of fighting spirit. However there were also other two chess tournaments: the Master Tournament (for players with FIDE rating 2000 and more) and the Main Tournament (for players with FIDE rating 2050 and below). Other chess events like blitz, rapid, chess960, chess-tennis and a simultaneous event gathered many chess lovers in the city of Biel. There were over 200 players from 30 countries, over 50 titled players in total from which 23 grandmasters.

The Master Tournament that was held simultaneously was very tough and also deserves an article. The tournament was an eleven round Swiss, with one rest day.

After five rounds Salem A.R. Saleh was the sole leader, having beaten Jan Smeets. The GM from UAE lost in round six to Harikrishna, who took the lead together with Mateusz Bartel. In the final round these two players were leading: Pentala Harikrishna and Mateusz Bartel, both with 7.5/10, with several players half a point behind. Harikrishna managed to beat Daniel Hausrath, while Bartel was winning but had to settle for a draw against Susant Megaranto.

The winner of the 2013 Biel Master Tournament: Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna

Second (on tiebreak) with 8.0/11: Polish GM Mateusz Bartel

The winners of the Master Tournament: Bartel Mateusz (second),
Pentala Harikrishna (first place) and Dragan Solak (third)

Equal 2nd-4th: Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi, with 8.0/11 points

Top final standings (after eleven rounds)

# Player Ti. Rtng Nat + = – Pts TB1 TB2
1. Harikrishna,Penta GM 2680 IND 6 5 0 8.5 68.5 665.0
2. Bartel,Mateusz GM 2619 POL 5 6 0 8.0 72.0 662.5
3. Solak,Dragan GM 2598 TUR 5 6 0 8.0 71.5 677.0
4. Bu,Xiangzhi GM 2664 CHN 6 4 1 8.0 70.0 669.5
5. Gharamian,Tigran GM 2655 FRA 5 5 1 7.5 68.5 646.0
6. Adianto,Utut GM 2548 INA 6 3 2 7.5 64.0 631.5
7. Megaranto,Susanto GM 2524 INA 5 5 1 7.5 62.0 630.0
8. Grachev,Boris GM 2683 RUS 4 6 1 7.0 72.0 660.0
9. Salem,A R. Saleh GM 2531 UAE 6 2 3 7.0 69.0 654.5
10. Smeets,Jan GM 2643 NED 6 2 3 7.0 69.0 644.5
11. Hausrath,Daniel IM 2516 GER 4 6 1 7.0 68.5 647.0
12. Zhao,Xue GM 2553 CHN 6 2 3 7.0 65.5 645.5
13. Saric,Ivan GM 2639 CRO 6 2 3 7.0 65.0 632.0
14. Ganguly,Surya GM 2628 IND 4 6 1 7.0 64.5 632.5
15. Cvitan,Ognjen GM 2562 CRO 4 6 1 7.0 64.0 630.0
16. Malakhatko,Vadim GM 2529 BEL 6 2 3 7.0 61.5 627.0
17. Kurnosov,Igor GM 2657 RUS 4 5 2 6.5 67.5 630.0
18. Antipov,Mikhail A IM 2490 RUS 5 3 3 6.5 65.5 646.0
19. Sandipan,Chanda GM 2623 IND 3 7 1 6.5 65.5 641.5
20. Farid,Firman Syah IM 2396 INA 6 1 4 6.5 61.5 616.5
21. Donchenko,Alexand IM 2477 GER 4 5 2 6.5 60.5 616.5
22. Saric,Ante GM 2565 CRO 4 5 2 6.5 60.5 615.0
23. Medina,Warda Auli WIM 2286 INA 4 5 2 6.5 56.0 590.5
24. Raetsky,Alexander GM 2412 RUS 4 5 2 6.5 55.5 603.0

Ninth: UAE GM Salem A.R. Saleh, who led during the first five rounds

Tenth: Dutch GM Jan Smeets

It is no surprise that in such a strong and big open several norms were scored: GM norm by Daniel Hausrath (GER), IM norms by Qian Huang (CHN), Rasch Holger (GER) and Ghazal Hakimifard (IRI), who also got a WGM norm.

Eleventh: Daniel Hausrath, happy about his last GM norm (and other things)

Twelfth: Chinese GM Xue Zhao, best women in the tournament

14th: Indian GM and Anand second: Surya Shekhar Ganguly

IM Anna Zozulia, BEL, scored 5.5 points from 11 games

Iranian WIM Ghazal Hakimifard scored two norms: WGM and IM

Chinese WGM Qian Huang finished 25th and made an IM norm

The podium in the Main Tournament: Ireneusz Lada (second),
Sayadyan Edvard (first) and Nadia Anggraeni (third)

Biel (in German) or Bienne (in French) is the biggest bilingual town or city in Switzerland, in which German and French are spoken side by side in equal measure. The beautiful town lies next to Lake Biel, at the foot of the chain of Jura Mountains. Being the center of the largest continous lake and river system in Switzerland, Biel is an ideal location for your next trip! The dates for the 47th Biel Chess Festival are already announced: 12th-25th July 2014!

View of the Lake Biel – the weather was good enough to have a swim

You can also go on a boat tour on the free day

A rainbow over the city

Raclette – a Swiss specialty (heating the cheese and scraping off the melted part)

The beautiful old town of Biel

Pasquart Church in Biel

The funicular railway takes you up to Magglingen/Macolin ...

... which is more than 400 meters above the lake and the city (scroll right)

Links

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.