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On Saturday, the stars of the Accentus Rapid were introduced, including legends Anatoly Karpov, Vlastimil Hort and Rafael Vaganian. They don't play much these days, so it was interesting to see how they fare against a group of younger and hungrier players.
Unfortunately, all three were eliminated in the preliminary quarter-final round, so we were only treated to two games from these experienced masters. Afterwards Anatoly Karpov was a guest on the live commentary with Danny King.
The rating favorites David Navara and Pentala Harikrishna advanced to the final two-game match, which was won by Navara. In the first game, playing with the white pieces, the Czech number 1 found a strong queen maneuver which won a pawn:
White threatens the a6 pawn, but once defended by 22...Bc8 (not Black's best, but there are no satisfactory options), Navara had 23.Qc3! hitting the rook and threating to win the a6 pawn via the discovered attack on Harikrishna's c6 knight. That material and the resulting initiative was enough for Navara to convert the position with relative ease. In the second game Navara drew comfortably in a Scheveningen Sicilian.
The GM tournament gets under way on Monday at 14:00 CEST, with an ecletic field. Among the players is Peter Leko, who has played just one tournament game so far this year — a draw against the young Norwegian talent Aryan Tari in the Italian Team Championship — but he certainly has memories of Switzerland, where in 2004 he nearly became World Champion in Brissago, in his match with Vladimir Kramnik.
The complete GM tournament roster (in rating order) is:
Also starting Monday, the Masters Open has over 120 participants, including more than 30 Grandmasters. The American GM and Biel-veteran Sam Shankland leads the list.
ChessBase has a long cooperation with the organizers in Biel and will provide live commentary with Daniel King and Joe Gallagher.
The beautiful Biel / Bienne lakeside | Photo: bielchessfestival.ch
Andre Schulz contributed to this report
