With his three wins from four classical games, one of them with Black, last year's winner Lê Quang Liem totals 12 points and is thus currently the most successful player in this category of the triathlon. Unlike Lê, however, Vincent Keymer and David Navara have not yet lost a single one of the classical games (Keymer two wins with two draws, Navara one win with three draws). Combined with their superior performance in the Rapid, Keymer and Navara are clearly the players who have been able to make their mark on the tournament so far. Especially with his win today against Yu Yangyi, current world no. 19, Keymer proved his strong form.
GMT Triathlon: Interim Ranking
|
Rank |
Name |
Games |
Classical |
Rapid |
Blitz |
Total |
|
1 |
GM Vincent KEYMER |
11 |
11 |
10 |
|
21 |
|
2 |
GM David NAVARA |
11 |
8 ½ |
10 |
|
18 ½ |
|
3 |
GM LÊ Quang Liêm |
11 |
12 |
5 |
|
17 |
|
4 |
GM YU Yangyi |
11 |
4 ½ |
9 |
|
13 ½ |
|
5 |
GM Bassem AMIN |
11 |
5 ½ |
8 |
|
13 ½ |
|
6 |
GM Jules MOUSSARD |
11 |
6 |
6 |
|
12 |
|
7 |
GM Arjun ERIGAISI |
11 |
3 |
5 |
|
8 |
|
8 |
GM Bogdan-Daniel DEAC |
11 |
4 ½ |
3 |
|
7 ½ |
Master Tournament: Bu back on top
The nominally strongest player in the field, China's Bu Xiangzhi, won his game against the previous day's leader, compatriot Liu Yan, to take the top spot in the MTO Master Tournament. He is now the only player with 4.5 points out of a possible 5, ahead of no less than eight pursuers with 4 points each. Among them are top-seeded players like the grandmasters Aryan Chopra, Liu Yan or Pranav Anand, but also the convincing FM Marius Deuer from Germany (born in 2008) and the best woman of the tournament, the Indian WGM Vantika Agrawal.
Main Tournament and Amateur Trounament
In the top match of the Main Tournament HTO, the two leaders Michal Mirski and Alexey Khanabiev played a back-and-forth duel, in which Khanabiev, playing with black, was unable to benefit from an advantageous endgame, resulting in a draw. The two remain at the top of the rankings with 4.5/5 points each, ahead of a trio with 4 points.
In the Amateur Tournament ATO, tournament favourite Athanasios Zafeiridis (SUI) won the top duel of the two leaders against Dmitrii Titov, so that he now leads the table alone with 5/5. Second and also the only one with 4.5/5 points is Matthias Gallus from the Biel region.
Outlook: Blitz Chess and the Youth
In the Grandmaster Tournament, the contours are beginning to emerge. But on Saturday the third discipline of the triathlon will come into play: blitz. Where the players have only three minutes of thinking time per game, plus two seconds per move made. The grandmasters will all play each other twice, so everyone will play a total of 14 games. We can look forward to Yu Yangyi, currently No. 12 in the world in this discipline, and David Navara, reigning European Champion. How will the ranking look after that day?
But it is not only the grandmasters who will be playing blitz chess tomorrow: an open one-day tournament in this category will also be held in the hall of the Biel Congress Centre from 2 pm. Well over 100 participants have already registered and registrations can still be made until 12 noon on Saturday.
In addition, the Biel Chess Festival will also offer a platform for juniors on Saturday: the youth tournament supported by the VINETUM Foundation will take place. Close to 60 children and young people will compete in this tournament open to all in the three categories U10, U13 and U18.
The MTO, HTO and ATO tournaments, on the other hand, have their day off.
Beauty Award Round 4 MTO, HTO, ATO
Winner MTO: Pranav Anand vs. Marco Materia 1-0
Winner HTO: Philippe Corbat vs. Fabien Maitre 1-0
Winner ATO: Dennis Marketos vs. Alexis Rose 0-1
Games of the winners: https://www.bielchessfestival.ch/Tournaments/Open-Tournaments/ISF-Beauty-Awards/Day-4.html
Pictures of the Biel International Chess Festival are available under the following link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/143150736@N02/collections/72157721909678547/
On the evening of each day of the Festival, the OC sends out a media report on the day's events.