Carlsen, Caruana and Morozevich winners in 7th round Biel - UPDATE

The seventh round of the Accentus GM tournament in Biel saw three decisive games. Magnus Carlsen beat Alexei Shirov with Black, but runner-up Alexander Morozevich kept pace with a win against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. In the last game to finish, Fabiano Caruana defeated Yannick Pelletier. Brief video interview with Carlsen added.

General info

The 44th Biel Chess Festival takes place July 16-29 in Biel, Switzerland. The 'Grandmaster Tournament' is a six-player, double round robin with Caruana, Pelletier, Shirov, Carlsen, Morozevich and Vachier-Lagrave.The rate of play is 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20 moves and then 15 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from move 61. The 'football' scoring system is in effect: three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. Besides, no draw offers are permitted before move 30. More info here.

Round 7

It's a pretty little town, Biel, with an enormous chess history. It all started on July 20th, 1968 with a first international open, in Hotel Dufour, with 34 participants from 9 countries and a budget of 3,200 Swiss francs! Eventually local hero Edwin Bhend finished ahead of 16-year-old Jan Timman, who took revenge next year.

In 1976, the 9th edition was at the same time an interzonal tournament in which Bent Larsen, Tigran Petrosian, Lajos Portisch, Mikhail Tal and Vassily Smyslov participated. A year later the first GM tournament was held, and won by Tony Miles.

In 1979 Viktor Korchnoi, who eventually started playing for Switzerland, won in Biel. Subsequent winners were Yehuda Grünfeld (1980), Eric Lobron (1981), John Nunn (1982) and again Tony Miles (1983). 1984 saw the sensational win of Pia Cramling over Vice-World Champion Korchnoi; tournament victory was shared by Robert Hübner and Vlastimil Hort.

In 1985 Biel organized another Interzonal Tournament, which was won by Rafael Vaganian. The other qualifiers for the Candidates Matches were Yasser Seirawan, Andrei Sokolov and Nigel Short. Eight years later the Biel Interzonal was won by Boris Gelfand and saw the biggest success for Dutch GM Paul van der Sterren in his career: a second place. The two qualified together with Vladimir Kramnik, Gata Kamsky, Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov.

Viktor Korchnoi repeated his success of 1979 in 2001. Anatoly Karpov won three times in Biel (1990, 1992 and 1996) and the same goes for Alexander Morozevich: (2003, 2004 and 2006). The Russian GM still has chances to claim a 4th title, after beating Vachier-Lagrave in the 7th round.

Morozevich-Vachier-Lagrave Biel, 2011



The Frenchman should have gone for the interesting complications that follow after 21... Nf4! 22. gxf4 Qh4+ 23. Kf1 Bh3+ 24. Ng2 Rd2 25. Re1 Rxb2 e.g. 26. Qg5 Qxg5 27. fxg5 Rxa2 28. Kf2 Bxg2 29. Kxg2 a5. Instead, after 21... Be6 22. Nc2 Rd2 23. Nxb4 Rxb2 24. Qc3 Rxb4 25. Qxb4 Black didn't get enough compensation for the exchange.



Magnus Carlsen still leads by three points after beating Alexei Shirov with Black. This game was more or less equal for most of the time, until Shirov blundered.

Shirov-Carlsen Biel, 2011



"White has enough activity for a draw," said Carlsen. 46. e5? "I think it's a blunder." (Carlsen) 46. Bd1 is better. 46... Qa2 47. Qe4 Bxe5! That's the problem; the white queen is overloaded. 48.h4 Re8 49. Kg2 h5! and since 50.g4 doesn't really work here, Black was winning.



Here's a brief interview with Magnus Carlsen after this game:



Fabiano Caruana won his first game of the tournament, and a good one. Against Yannick Pelletier the Italian chose his favourite Grünfeld, an opening that is very hot at top level for quite a while already. In the middlegame Pelletier missed a chance to force a draw immediately, and then was just outplayed.

Pelletier-Caruana Biel, 2011



After 31. f5! Bxf5 32. Rxf5! gxf5 33. Rf1 it seems that Black cannot avoid the draw, e.g. 34... f4 34. Qg5+ =. In the game after 31. Bxe4 Rxe4 32. f5 Rbe8 33. h3 Bh6 34. Bb4 Bg7 35. Qg5 h6 36. Qd2 gxf5 37. Qf2 f4 Black's advantage was getting bigger and bigger.

Games round 7

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Biel 2011 | Schedule & results

Round 1	18.07.11	14:00 CET		Round 6	25.07.11	14:00 CET
Caruana	½-½	Vachier-Lagrave		Vachier-Lagrave	½-½	Caruana
Pelletier	0-1	Carlsen		Carlsen	1-0	Pelletier
Shirov	½-½	Morozevich		Morozevich	½-½	Shirov
Round 2	19.07.11	14:00 CET		Round 7	26.07.11	14:00 CET
Vachier-Lagrave	0-1	Morozevich		Morozevich	1-0	Vachier-Lagrave
Carlsen	1-0	Shirov		Shirov	0-1	Carlsen
Caruana	½-½	Pelletier		Pelletier	0-1	Caruana
Round 3	20.07.11	14:00 CET		Round 8	27.07.11	14:00 CET
Pelletier	½-½	Vachier-Lagrave		Vachier-Lagrave	-	Pelletier
Shirov	1-0	Caruana		Caruana	-	Shirov
Morozevich	½-½	Carlsen		Carlsen	-	Morozevich
Round 4	22.07.11	14:00 CET		Round 9	28.07.11	14:00 CET
Shirov	½-½	Vachier-Lagrave		Carlsen	-	Vachier-Lagrave
Morozevich	½-½	Pelletier		Morozevich	-	Caruana
Carlsen	1-0	Caruana		Shirov	-	Pelletier
Round 5	23.07.11	14:00 CET		Round 10	29.07.11	11:00 CET
Vachier-Lagrave	1-0	Carlsen		Vachier-Lagrave	-	Shirov
Caruana	0-1	Morozevich		Pelletier	-	Morozevich
Pelletier	½-½	Shirov		Caruana	-	Carlsen

Biel 2011 | Round 7 Standings (Classical)

Biel 2011 | Round 7 Standings (Football)

#	Name		Elo	Points
1.	Magnus Carlsen	NOR	2821	16
2.	Alexander Morozevich	RUS	2694	13
3-4.	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	FRA	2722	7
3-4.	Alexei Shirov	ESP	2714	7
5.	Fabiano Caruana	ITA	2711	6
6.	Yannick Pelletier	SUI	2590	4

Photos © Biel Chess Festival

Links

• Official website
• Sergey Shipov live analysis
• Chessbase videos
• Games in PGN via TWIC