For the participants of the Grandmaster Tournament, Sunday was a day of rest. Traditionally, the organisers conduct an excursion on this day. Six of the eight grandmasters did not miss the tour to the "Wild West", to the Bison Ranch in Les Prés-d'Orvin. After lunch, some took the opportunity to zipline between the Jura firs or try their hand at axe throwing.
Much remains possible in the Master Tournament
The open tournaments were played today, including the well-stocked master tournament. The No.1 seed Bu Xiangzhi of China still leads the field after today with a half-point advantage. Today's top game against Aryan Chopra from India ended in a draw after 62 moves. Since the closest pursuers also ended their games with the same result, there are no significant shifts at the top of the table. The best Swiss players in the tournament with 3 points each are Fabian Frey (43rd) and Oliver Sutter (49th).
Main Tournament and Amateur Tournament
There is tension too in the main tournament HTO: The two previous leaders could not win today: Alexey Khanabiev played to a draw against Rainer Hansel, Michal Mirski even lost to Lukas Oestmann. This allowed Oestmann, together with Shourya Vihan, who also won his match today, to catch up with Khanabiev, who are now all on 5 points.
The two best placed in the Amateur Tournament ATO, Athanasios Zafeiridis and Matthias Gallus, played a draw today, so that two victorious pursuers, Thomas Mani and Alexis Rose, could move closer to the top. After six rounds Zafeiridis leads with 5½ points, half a point ahead of Gallus, Mani and Rose.
Outlook: The decisive phase begins
After the rest day on Sunday, the decisive phase in the Biel Grandmaster Triathlon begins with the last three rounds of classical chess from Monday to Wednesday. Monday's pairings are particularly tricky: the two point leaders David Navara and Vincent Keymer meet directly. Neither has lost a classical game so far – will this series end tomorrow? The two closest pursuers will also duel: third-placed Lê Quang Liêm will face fourth-placed Yu Yangyi. Especially Yu, who plays with the advantage of the white pieces, is under pressure to win his game to keep his chances for a top position. Further games are Amin against Deac and Erigaisi against Moussard.
The playing hall will be even busier from Monday: Besides the seventh round of the open tournaments MTO, HTO and ATO, the newly introduced week's tournament WTO will start with its first two rounds. Registration for this can be done on site until 11:30 am on Mon.
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.