Shirov beats Caruana in third round Biel
In the third round of the Biel Chess Festival Alexei Shirov scored his first victory, against Fabiano Caruana in a Bishop's Opening. Alexander Morozevich and Magnus Carlsen drew after a good Grünfeld 4.Bg5 fight while Yannick Pelletier and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave split the point in a King's Indian.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 3 report
The encounter between world's number one Magnus Carlsen and former word's number two Alexander Morozevich was a fascinating fight. The two met each other for the first time behind the chess board in the same tournament: in Biel 2006 Carlsen beat Moro in both encounters. If we take into account all classical, rapid and blitz games, the two played each other 21 times. Carlsen won 7 times, Morozevich 4 times, and 10 games ended in draws.In the 3rd round in Biel they played a Grünfeld Indian where White chose 4.Bg5 and after 4...Ne4 the rare 5.Nxe4. Morozevich wasn't satisfied with his early play and thought that after 10...f5 Black is already better. Carlsen missed a chance to become active on the queenside one move quicker, but still kept the better chances. Morozevich defended quite well and found counterplay on the kingside just in time to force the draw.
Against Fabiano Caruana, Alexei Shirov played the Bishop's Opening for the second time, after he had reached a promising position with it against Anish Giri recently in Malmö. He liked Caruana's concept of keeping the d-pawn on its initial square, to hope for ...d5 immediately. In general Black was doing fine for a long time, and seemed to get the upper hand around move 30. However, suddenly the Italian lost an important pawn.Shirov-Caruana
Biel, 2011
31... d3!? 32. Re4 Nd7
Here 32... d2 33. Rg4 d1Q+ 34. Bxd1 Qxd1+ 35. Kf2 Qc2+ 36. Kg3 Qxb2 37. f6 g6 38. Rh4 wins for White.
33. Qe7
33... Qc6?
Black can still save himself with 33... Qb6! e.g. 34. Qxd7 Qxb3 35. Re8+ Rxe8 36. Qxe8+ Kh7 37. Qe4 Qd1+ 38. Kg2 f6.
34. Re3! d2 35. Rd3
The pawn drops, and Shirov won on move 63.
After his unfortunate loss in the second round, Vachier-Lagrave played a King's Indian with ...Nbd7 against Yannick Pelletier. If this game was saying one thing about the game of chess it was that it's so incredibly difficult. The video below with both players shows crazy lines, and then the computer finds even more amazing stuff:Pelletier - Vachier-Lagrave
Biel, 2011
16... Ng4!? 17. Bb5! Nxe3 18. Bxe8
Here the French grandmaster, who was having trouble calculating yesterday as well, suddenly realized that 18... Bxd4 19. Rxd4 Nxc2 20. Rxe7 Nxd4 fails to 21. Bxf7+ Kf8 22. Rd7 and Black is lost. Perhaps because of this he went for 18... Rxe8? where the brilliant 18... Be5!! is still OK for Black: 19. Bxf7+ (19. Rxe3 Bxd4 is the pointe) 19... Kxf7 20. Qd3 Nxd1 21. Rxd1 Qh4 22. f4 Bxd4+ 23. Qxd4 Re8=.
19. Qd2!
Pelletier saw that 19. Qa4 fails to, again, 19... Be5!!.
19... Bh6 20. Nc2 f5 21. Qd3 f4 22. Nxe3 fxe3 23. Re2 Rf8 24. Qb3 Qe5 25. Rc1 Bf4
With his last move Black went 'all-in', as Vachier-Lagrave said. His bluff worked:
26. g3?!
26. Rxc7! just wins: 26... Qh5 (26... Bxh2+ 27. Kf1 Bf4 28. Qc3!) 27. h3 Qh4 28. Rxe3! Bxe3+ 29. Qxe3 +-.
26... Bxg3! 27. hxg3 Rxf3 28. Rg2 Rxg3 29. Qc3 Qf4
30. Rxg3
Missing 30. Qe1! and now after 30... Rxg2+ (30... Rh3 31. Rxc7 Qf5 32. Qc3) 31. Kxg2 Qe4+ 32. Kg3 Qe5+ 33. Kf3! Qxd5+ 34. Kxe3 Black can still give a lot of checks, but whether it will save the game remains the question.
30... Qxg3+ 31. Kh1 Qh3+ 32. Kg1 Qg3+ 33. Kh1 Qh4+ 34. Kg1 Qg3+ 1/2-1/2
Games round 3
Game viewer by ChessTempoVideos by Chessbase
| # | Name | Elo | Points | |
| 1. | Magnus Carlsen | NOR | 2815 | 7 |
| 2. | Alexander Morozevich | RUS | 2694 | 5 |
| 3. | Alexei Shirov | ESP | 2714 | 4 |
| 3-6. | Fabiano Caruana | ITA | 2711 | 2 |
| 3-6. | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | FRA | 2722 | 2 |
| 3-6. | Yannick Pelletier | SUI | 2590 | 2 |
Photos © Biel Chess Festival
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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