Mishra defeats Pragg - Vaishali wins

The chess prodigy Abhimaynu Mishra comes up trumps at the GMT-Masters in Biel. In the first round of classical chess, Mishra scores a major coup: with black he defeats Praggnanandhaa, the tournament's No. 1 and the world's No. 8. He thus moves up to third place in the table – with Lê Quang Liêm replacing the Armenian Martirosyan at the top. While the latter played to a draw against Shankland, the Vietnamese player defeated Keymer to take over the top spot. His sister Vaishali performed better than 'Pragg' today in the GMT Challengers tournament. She defeated Jonas Bjerre from Denmark, who is clearly better rated, also with Black, thus showing that she will not fall behind in the Challengers field. Salem Saleh and Alexander Donchenko also celebrated victories, the latter thus defending his lead in the GMT-Challengers.

GMT-Masters: Last year's winner already in the lead again

Lê Quang Liêm was able to benefit from Praggs' slip-up, winning the duel between the tournament's No. 2 and 3 seeds against Vincent Keymer. As the previous leader Martirosyan drew against Shankland, last year's winner Lê Quang Liêm took over the Biel leader's throne again on the second day of the GMT-Masters, where he is clearly enjoying himself. The Vietnamese player is followed by Martirosyan and then Mishra, who proved with his masterpiece today against Pragg that he is a force to be reckoned with. After their defeats today, the two 2700 players Pragg and Keymer are somewhat surprisingly at the bottom of the table – but thanks to the attractive award of 4 points for a win in classical chess, this could look very different again after tomorrow's game!

GMT-Masters: Interim Ranking

Rank	Name	Games	Classical	Rapid	Blitz	Total
1	GM LÊ Quang Liêm	6	4	5		9
2	GM Haik MARTIROSYAN	6	1 ½	7		8 ½
3	GM Abhimanyu MISHRA	6	4	4		8
4	GM Sam SHANKLAND	6	1 ½	4		5 ½
5	GM PRAGGNANANDHAA R	6		5		5
6	GM Vincent KEYMER	6		5		5

 

Clear conditions in the GMT Challengers

All the games at the GMT Challengers ended with a clear result today, so that the table is already taking on clear contours. Alexander Donchenko was able to assert himself at the top of the table, ultimately beating Ihor Samunenkov in the longest game of the day at the GMT tournaments. He is followed by Salem Saleh, who defeated Marc'Andria Maurizzi, and Vaishali Rameshbabu in third place. Vaishali, the player with the lowest Elo rating among the GMT participants, proves with her victory today against the top seed of the GMT-Challengers, Jonas Bjerre, that as the only woman in the tournament, she will keep up well with her male competitors.

GMT-Challengers: Interim Ranking

Rank	Name	Games	Classical	Rapid	Blitz	Total
1	GM Alexander DONCHENKO	6	4	7		11
3	GM Saleh Salam	6	4	6		10
2	GM VAISHALI Rameshbabu	6	4	5		9
4	GM Jonas BJERRE	6		5		5
5	GM Marc'Andria MAURIZZI	6		4		4
6	GM Ihor SAMUNENKOV	6		3		3

 

Master Tournament MTO: No walk in the park for the favourites

The second day of the Master Tournament MTO already showed that numerous strong players from the second tier will draw attention to themselves and demand everything from the tournament favourites. The three top seeded players all drew their games today and two grandmasters even had to leave the board as losers against lower-rated opponents: GM Sethuraman from India lost to the young Austrian FM Lukas Dotzer and the Romanian GM David Gavrilescu was defeated by the Indonesian IM Irine Sukander.
After two rounds, there are now 15 participants without a point loss.

Amateur Tournament ATO: An overview

The second major open tournament in Biel started today with the Amateur Tournament ATO. The tournament, open to all players with an Elo rating up to a maximum of 2000, will run over nine rounds over the next ten days (Sun, 21 July rest day). Each player has 90 minutes per game for the first 40 moves, followed by an additional 30 minutes and an extra 30 seconds per move.
129 participants have registered for this year's tournament. They come from 19 different countries, with Switzerland best represented with 78 players, ahead of the 24-strong delegation from South Korea, consisting of a youth team. In addition to players from neighbouring countries, federations such as Australia, Kazakhstan and Uruguay are also represented. The starting list is headed by WIM Alfia Nasybullina (Elo 1997) from Kazakhstan, ahead of Dominique Wiesmann (Elo 1963) from Biel.

Outlook: Lê Quang Liêm faces Pragg

Tomorrow Wednesday sees the second round of classical chess in the GMT tournaments. Leader Lê Quang Liêm will face Praggnanandhaa, who urgently needs to score points despite the disadvantage of the black pieces. The GMT-Masters also features a US-American duel between Shankland and Mishra, as well as a clash between Martirosyan and Keymer.
Two of today's winners will meet in the GMT-Challengers, with Vaishali taking on Donchenko. Salem Saleh and Bjerre, as well as Maurizzi and Samunenkov will also play each other.
The third round of the Master Tournament MTO will be played tomorrow, and the second round of the Amateur Tournament ATO.

Beauty Award Round 1 MTO

Winner MTO:  IM Mukhiddin Madaminov vs. Suvirr Malli 1-0

https://lichess.org/broadcast/57th-international-chess-festival-biel-open--master/round-1/4QrbgPJL/YkS0CKm5

An impression of what goes on on stage at the Biel Chess Festival during the first few minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMYjL0fXTvM

Pictures of the Biel International Chess Festival are available under the following link:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/143150736@N02/collections/72157722912417534/

On the evening of each day of the Festival, the OC sends out a media report on the day's events.