Peter Bohnenblust, the president of the organising committee, was ‘very satisfied’ at the end of the festival. Despite two fewer tournaments on the programme than in the previous year, the 766 participants were one of the highest numbers in recent years, which is particularly remarkable when one considers that the chess festival partly overlapped with the Swiss Individual Championships. Once again, the festival was characterised by its high level of internationality: Participants from 46 countries were present in Biel, equalling the record set in 2019. Most of the players came from Switzerland and the surrounding countries, but as usual there were many Indian players in Biel, a youth group with two dozen young hopefuls from South Korea and some top players from Kazakhstan and Mongolia travelled to the event. Other countries represented included Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Uruguay.
The media response was correspondingly good: in addition to the good regional coverage, the event was followed by the chess community all over the world and was actively reported on the relevant specialised portals. Thanks to the now up to 111 digital boards on which the games were played, the moves of these games could be followed live on the Internet. A total of 3815 games were played across all the tournaments in Biel, of which 2684 could be followed live, something of which technical specialst Ufuk Tuncer is particularly proud.
Biel at the centre of a Guinness World Record
The Biel Chess Festival played an extraordinary role on 20 July, the International Day of Chess. To mark its centenary, the World Chess Federation FIDE was aiming for a world record: the most chess games played in 24 hours. A truly global event, in which millions of games were played online and thousands at tournaments around the world, but the threads came together in Biel. The technical centre, where all registered games from all over the world were recorded and added up, was set up by FIDE in Biel, this big name in the chess world. Accordingly, Guinness World Records sent the adjudicator, who supervised and certified the procedure, to Biel, where the corresponding certificate was presented to the FIDE representative in the evening. In the end, 7,284,970 chess games were recorded on this day, which met the requirements for the record.
Conclusion on the sporting part
Overall, the organisers can look back on a smoothly run tournament. The GMT arbiter, Laurent Freyd, and the main arbiter of the open tournaments, Ana Srebrnic, found no serious offences and gave the participants a good report. Biel proved to be a good place for aspiring, ambitious chess players this year: a total of ten so-called norms were awarded. These are awarded for particularly good performances by a player at a certain level of play and three norms are required to achieve the next higher master title. The ten norms awarded in Biel included three grandmaster norms.
The organisers have once again introduced some innovations to the tournament formats. For example, the traditional invitational tournament, the Biel Grandmaster Tournament, was organised for the first time in two different strength classes with six players in each: the GMT-Masters with players from the world's best and the GMT-Challengers, in which also strong grandmasters take part, but whose level is not (yet) quite high enough for the GMT-Masters. As in previous years, these tournaments were organised as a chess triathlon, i.e. with games in classical cadence, rapid and blitz chess. As a novelty this year, a final phase with additional classical games was introduced, in which the winner was finally determined and for which only the first four or three qualified.
GMT-Masters: Lê Quang Liêm crowned King of Biel for the third time
The GMT-Masters was characterised by a world-class field of players with an average Elo rating of 2693. With Praggnanandhaa, Lê Quang Liêm and Vincent Keymer, the organisers were able to sign up the world numbers 8, 17 and 21 and with Abhimanyu Mishra, the youngest grandmaster of all time, another absolutely exceptional chess player.
In this extraordinarily challenging field, Lê Quang Liêm came out on top, as he did in 2022 and 2023. The Vietnamese player, who only rarely takes part in tournaments and mainly works as a coach at an American university, once again demonstrated his extraordinary ability in Biel and proved that he can still easily hold his own against the young up-and-coming players.
GMT-Masters: Interim Ranking
|
Rank |
Name |
Games |
Classical |
Rapid |
Blitz |
Total |
|
1 |
GM LÊ Quang Liêm |
23 |
19 ½ |
5 |
6 ½ |
31 |
|
2 |
GM Haik MARTIROSYAN |
23 |
12 |
7 |
6 ½ |
25 ½ |
|
3 |
GM PRAGGNANANDHAA R |
23 |
12 ½ |
5 |
7 |
24 ½ |
|
4 |
GM Abhimanyu MISHRA |
23 |
15 ½ |
4 |
2 ½ |
22 |
|
5 |
GM Vincent KEYMER * |
20 |
8 ½ |
5 |
2 |
15 ½ |
|
6 |
GM Sam SHANKLAND * |
20 |
3 |
4 |
5 ½ |
12 ½ |
* not qualified for final phase
GMT-Challengers: A demonstration by Salem Saleh
The first GMT-Challengers in Biel has a clear winner: Salem Saleh, who was honouring Biel for the tenth time, was in impressive form. The Emirati, who already won the open Master Tournament MTO in Biel in 2021, won the invitational tournament by a clear margin. He impressed in all three categories, showing an outstanding performance in blitz in particular.
GMT-Challengers: Interim Ranking
|
Rank |
Name |
Games |
Classical |
Rapid |
Blitz |
Total |
|
1 |
GM Salem SALEH |
22 |
20 ½ |
6 |
9 |
35 ½ |
|
2 |
GM Alexander DONCHENKO |
22 |
16 ½ |
7 |
5 |
28 ½ |
|
3 |
GM VAISHALI Rameshbabu |
22 |
15 |
5 |
2 ½ |
22 ½ |
|
4 |
GM Jonas BJERRE * |
20 |
9 ½ |
5 |
3 |
17 ½ |
|
5 |
GM Marc'Andria MAURIZZI * |
20 |
3 |
4 |
5 ½ |
12 ½ |
|
6 |
GM Ihor SAMUNENKOV * |
20 |
1 ½ |
3 |
5 |
9 ½ |
* not qualified for final phase
Master Tournament MTO: Jumabayev wins in an evenly matched field
This year, 128 players competed in the open Master Tournament MTO in Biel, 82 of them with a chess title – and a few more who are striving for it. Many a grandmaster felt the effects of this, as some of the lower-ranked players put in strong performances, ensuring a tight race right to the end. In the end, GM Rinat Jumabayev came out on top, catching GM Leon Luke Mendonca in the last round.
Master Tournament MTO: Final Ranking
|
Rank |
Name |
Games |
Points |
|
1 |
GM Rinat Jumabayev |
10 |
7 ½ |
|
2 |
GM Leon Luke Mendonca |
10 |
7 ½ |
|
3 |
IM Ayush Sharma |
10 |
7 ½ |
|
4 |
IM Mukhiddin Madaminov |
10 |
7 ½ |
|
5 |
GM Sasikiran Krishnan |
10 |
7 |
|
6 |
GM Aryan Chopra |
10 |
7 |
|
7 |
Xue Haowen |
10 |
7 |
|
8 |
IM Aldiyar Ansat |
10 |
7 |
|
9 |
GM Arseniy Nesterov |
10 |
7 |
|
10 |
IM Sugar Gan-Erdene |
10 |
7 |
Complete Ranking: https://chess-results.com/tnr963846.aspx?lan=0&art=1&rd=10&turdet=YES&flag=30
Weeks' Tournaments finished as last tournaments
While the medals were being presented in the lobby of the Biel Congress Centre, chess was still being played upstairs in the hall. The last round was played in the two weeks' tournaments until the last move of the 57th Biel Chess Festival was finally made at 12:25. The WT2 for players above 1800 Elo was won by Manuel Dietiker (SUI), the WT1 for the weaker players by Yernur Akhmediyar (KAZ).
Ranking WT2: https://chess-results.com/tnr950972.aspx?lan=0&art=1&rd=5&turdet=YES&flag=30
Ranking WT1: https://chess-results.com/tnr950966.aspx?lan=0&art=1&rd=5&turdet=YES&flag=30
Pictures of the Biel International Chess Festival are available under the following link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/143150736@N02/collections/72157722912417534/