Bu Xiangzhi wins the Biel Master Tournament MTO

In the end, the favourite prevailed: The top seeded Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi wins the well-staffed Biel Master Tournament MTO. In second place, half a point behind, is GM Aryan Chopra from India. This is followed by a field of eight players who achieved 7 points, the best tie-break score being achieved by GM Liu Yan, Bu's compatriot, who thus completes the podium. The best Swiss player among the 98 participants was Fabian Frey in 50th place, who achieved 5 out of a possible 10 points.

Vantika Agrawal from India finished the tournament as the best woman, in 15th place, 2 points behind Bu. The best under-18 player was the American Nico Chasin in 6th place, and the best over-60 player was Georg Seul from Germany, ranking 10th.

An unusually large number of title norms were awarded at this year's Biel Master Tournament. In order to acquire a higher master title, a chess player must earn so-called norms with good performances in three different tournaments. At this year's MTO, no less than seven norms could be awarded:

• GM Norms: Samant Aditya S (IND), Harikrishnan A Ra (IND).
• IM norms: Peng Xiongjian (CHN), Huang Renjie (CHN), Vantika Agrawal (IND), Marius Deuer (GER)
• WIM norm: Zhang Lanlin (CHN)

It is worth mentioning that this is the third and final norm for Samant Aditya S – he is thus the third Indian in the last three years to achieve his final GM norm in Biel: Raja Harshit in 2021, Pranav Anand in 2022 and now Samant Aditya S in 2023!

 

Final Ranking Master Tournament MTO

Rank	Name	Games	Points
1	GM Bu Xiangzhi	10	8
2	GM Aryan Chopra	10	7½
3	GM Liu Yan	10	7
4	Peng Xiongjian	10	7
5	GM Nguyen, Ngoc Truong Son	10	7
6	IM Nico Chasin	10	7
7	IM Rathanvel V S	10	7
8	IM Read Samadov	10	7
9	IM Robert Shlyakhtenko	10	7
10	IM Georg Seul	10	7

Full ranking: https://chess-results.com/tnr764425.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=10

Week's Torunament WTO

The penultimate round was played today in the week'e tournament WTO. Before the final round, Neboisa Illijin from Romania is in the lead with 5½ points, half a point ahead of Chase Knowles (USA).

Outlook: Mind games: Chess & Poker combined!

The chess festival is not over yet. The following events are still on the programme:

• Fri. 28.7. 14h00: The last round of the week's tournament WTO
• Fri, 28.7. 18h00: "Brain Battle Chess vs. Poker": An event in which four chess players meet four poker players. Chess is played first, and the winners then receive a larger stake for the subsequent poker tournament.
• Sat, 29.7. 14h00 - 18h30 Swiss Blitz Chess Championship (time to play per player: 3 min + 2 sec per move)
• Sun, 30.7. 9h45 - 19h00 Swiss Rapid Chess Championship (time per player: 15 min + 5 sec per move)

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.