The triathlons had their rest day on Monday in Biel. Instead, the Masters Open Tournament MTO got underway. This is an open tournament, but only for players with an Elo rating of over 1900, so it brings together players of a higher standard. A total of 94 participants are taking part in this year’s event, 42 of whom hold a chess title, including eight grandmasters.
The open Free Style Chess tournament, played in Chess960, has also begun at the Biel Congress Centre and will be played over the next seven days.
A day of rest dedicated to watches
On the rest day for the twelve competitors in the two triathlons – the Masters and the Generations Challenge – the programme traditionally includes an outing for those who fancied a change of scene. In the watchmaking town of Biel, the Grand Masters visited Omega’s modern manufacturing facility, where they were given a tour of the intricacies of watchmaking. Finally, the tour continued at the Omega Museum with a look back at the company’s history. After an entertaining afternoon, the players then retired to prepare for tomorrow’s match day.
29 nations at the Masters Open
The Masters Open MTO, which began on Monday, brings together 94 participants from 29 different nations in Biel this year. Alongside Switzerland (28 players), India (11) and Germany (10) are the best-represented nations. However, the field also includes players from more exotic destinations such as the Faroe Islands, Macau and Kuwait. The favourites going into the tournament are Grandmasters Ganguly Surya Shekhar (IND, 2578 Elo), Peter Acs (HUN, 2561 Elo) and Ghosh Diptayan (IND, 2554 Elo). The highest-ranked Swiss player in the field is IM Fabian Bänziger (2435 Elo), whilst the highest-ranked woman is WGM Anna Shukman (2443 Elo).
In Monday’s first round, all the top players won their opening games, as expected, as they had not yet faced opponents of their own calibre.
Interim Ranking MTO: https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1451903.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=1&turdet=YES&flag=30&SNode=S0
Free Style Chess: Intuition rather than textbook
On Monday morning, the Free Style Chess Tournament got underway as part of the Biel Chess Festival. This open tournament, played in the variant also known as Chess960 or Fischer random, is aimed at players who wish to give free rein to their intuition and creativity in chess, rather than simply relying on a memorised opening repertoire that is as sophisticated as possible. This is because the starting positions of the pieces on the first row are determined by a draw – there are a total of 960 possible variations – making it virtually impossible to prepare for the opening. The tournament will last seven days and consist of seven rounds.
Interim Ranking FSC: https://s2.chess-results.com/tnr1452009.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=1&turdet=YES&flag=30&SNode=S0
Outlook: The triathlons are kicking off their classical games
On Tuesday, the supreme discipline begins in the Masters Triathlons and the Generations Challenge: classical chess, a game requiring hours of intense concentration and consideration. In the Masters, the two current frontrunners will face each other: leader Levon Aronian takes on Aydin Süleymanli, who will be playing with the white pieces. In the other matches, Blübaum will play Erdogmus and Martínez will play Lê.
The Generations Challenge will also feature a top-of-the-table clash: Marco Materia vs Vaclav Finek. Furthermore there will be the matches between Xiao and Vaishali, and Yip and Kosteniuk.
Tuesday also marks the start of the Amateurs Open Tournament (ATO), the nine-round open tournament for players with an Elo rating of up to 2000. Around a hundred players are expected to take part in this tournament, which will play alongside the games of the Masters Open (MTO) in the afternoon.
Pictures of the Biel International Chess Festival are available under the following link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/143150736@N02/collections/72157725129451868/