Biel Rd.8: Carlsen-Morozevich drawn, Vachier, Shirov win

The 2011 Biel Chess Festival is taking place from July 16 to 29, in a number of groups: the Master Tournament (eleven rounds Swiss); the Main Tournament (nine rounds Swiss); a Rapid and a Blitz tournament; Chess960; Youth, Simultaneous, Chess Tennis, ChessBase training seminars. Of greatest interest is of course the Accentus Grandmaster Tournament with six very strong grandmasters playing a double round robin: Magnus Carlsen, Maximee Vachier-Lagrave, Alexei Shirov, Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Morozevich and Yannick Pelletier.

The participants: Caruana, Pelletier, Shirov, Carlsen, Morozevich, Vachier-Lagrave

The rate of play: 2 hours for 40 moves, then one hour for 20 and 15 min for the rest of the game, with 30 sec increment per move. The scoring system is three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. No draw offers are permitted before move 30.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave hasn’t quite had the tournament he had hoped for. The young Frenchman saw a winning position against Alexander Morozevich blow up in his face after he hallucinated badly, managed to beat Magnus Carlsen in a clean game which he milked to perfection, but then lost to Morozevich two rounds later. Today’s game against Yannick Pelletier was symptomatic of his tournament overall. He played an excellent game, culminating in a very nice rook sacrifice which should have ended it, then played an absolutely atrocious 31.Rxc6 which gave the Swiss player a chance to escape with his skin and a draw. Pelletier actually remained in the drawing area for a number of moves, no doubt causing enormous anguish inside the French player who had to be wondering whether he had screwed up (he had) or simply misjudged (he had not). Luckily for his sanity, Yannick finally slipped with 38…Rg7? (38…Qe8 was correct) and the win was back on the board, allowing Maxime to sleep a little lighter tonight.

Fabiano Caruana and Alexei Shirov finished last, but it was not in vain. Shirov won a pawn in the middlegame skirmish and Caruana chose to simplify into an endgame, perhaps feeling that was where his best chances lay. However, Shirov made no mistake and milked the endgame for all it had, forcing Caruana to throw in the towel 50 moves later. With it, he moves to 4.0/8, tied with Vachier-Lagrave for 3rd-4th, though contrary to the French player, does not have a Carlsen or Morozevich in the way.

The game between the leaders, Carlsen and Morozevich failed to live up to expectations though in all fairness they played it out. The game was a QGD Ragozin, but due to the way it unfolded, there was never any genuine tension in the position and few chances for either to generate anything beyond extra moves. It ended in a repetition after 35 moves. Perhaps more relevant is how they stand two rounds before the end. Neither is in any danger of not taking first and second, and while Carlsen has a half-point lead, his final two opponents are Vachier-Lagrave, who not only beat him in round five but also won today, and Caruana, who has had a forgettable tournament. Morozevich on the other hand also has Caruana, but his second opponent is Pelletier, which gives him reasonable theoretical chances to catch up with Carlsen by the end.

Standings

Live GM commentary on Playchess

There is live audio and video commentary on the chess server Playchess. The English commentary starts at 3:30 p.m., and German commentary directly from the playing site begins at 4:00 p.m.

As a special treat the multimedia commentary live from Biel is also available in our live browser coverage. This also includes the players analysing after their games.

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Remaining commentary schedule

Overview: schedule and results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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