Biel Chess Festival Underway
The annual Biel Chess Festival is underway in Switzerland. Biel always tries to offer something a little different, with a chess 960, blitz, simultaneous, and even a chess-tennis event among the offerings.
This year the organisers have taken the interesting step of turning the showpiece event into a "Young Grandmaster Tournament" by inviting some of the best young players in the world headed by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (pictured).
The full line-up for the Young Grandmaster Tournament is:
| Name | Country | Age | Elo |
| Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | France | 19 | 2710 |
| Evgeny Tomashevsky | Russia | 22 | 2708 |
| Fabiano Caruana | Italy | 17 | 2675 |
| Wesley So | Philippines | 16 | 2665 |
| Dmitry Andreikin | Russia | 20 | 2643 |
| Anish Giri | Netherlands | 16 | 2642 |
| Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | Vietnam | 20 | 2642 |
| Parimarjan Negi | India | 17 | 2636 |
| Maxim Rodhstein | Israel | 21 | 2626 |
| David Howell | England | 19 | 2620 |
The festival runs from 1-30 July and the official site is here, with information on all the events.
The Young GM tournament starts on 19 July and finishes on 28 July, with one rest day on the 25th.
