Biel: Wojtaszek and Svane are eliminated

Biel Media Bulletin

At the open blitz tournament on Sunday, the 14-year-old Adewumi prevailed against 164 opponents! The first Biel Freestyle Chess Tournament, which ended after seven days, was won by Raetsky.

GMT-Masters: Salem and Fedoseev in the lead

After today’s ten games of blitz, Saleh Salem and Vladimir Fedoseev are leading the Biel GMT-Masters. Fedoseev in particular put in a strong performance in the fastest cadence of the triathlon, scoring 7 ½ out of a possible 10 points. He thus equalled Salem on points, who also underlined his good form by winning 6 points. Aravindh, who achieved the same score as Salem today, is the first runner-up, 1½ points behind.

Aravindh and Saleh

It is therefore very likely that the GMT-Masters title in Biel will be decided between these three players this year. The fourth player to qualify for the final phase of the Masters was decided by a razor-thin margin: Before today, Volodar Murzin was half a point ahead of Radoslaw Wojtaszek. In the course of today’s blitz, Wojtaszek was able to turn this into a half-point lead for himself – until the very last round, in which the game plan dictated that the two should meet in a direct duel. And this game had it all: Wojtaszek gained an advantage in the middlegame, both on the board and on the clock. However, he was unable to hold on to it and, on the contrary, it was Murzin who won the game – and thus entered the final phase in fourth place. The tournament is now over for Wojtaszek, as well as for Frederik Svane, who was the weakest blitz player today.

Games Blitz Tournament

GMT Masters: Interim Ranking

* not qualified for final phase

Challengers: Navara qualifies by a whisker

The blitz games in the GMT-Challengers brought about a decisive change in the standings compared to the previous day, and here too it was ultimately a knife-edge decision. The third to fifth-placed players are all within half a point of each other. In the end, Jumabayev and Navara scored 15 ½ points and Ma Qun finished with 15, which meant he was eliminated. Navara managed to win one point more than Ma Qun in the blitz today, allowing him to finish ahead of the Chinese player.

Nikolas Theodorou and Aram Hakobyan are pulling further and further ahead: they were also the strongest players in the blitz, so that the difference between Hakobyan in second place and Jumabayev in third is now a full 9 ½ points.

Games Blitz Tournament

GMT Challengers: Interim Ranking

* not qualified for final phase

14-year-old Tanitoluwa Adewumi wins the blitz tournament!

The youngsters dominated the one-day Biel BTZ blitz tournament over 13 rounds – above all FM Tanitoluwa Adewumi. The 14-year-old talent, who has already won the Spitalzentrum Biel U20 Blitz, was in impressive form and won 11 out of 13 games, including five victories against grandmasters such as Benjamin Bok and Pranesh M! A a whole point behind the American of Nigerian origin, GM Pranesh M (born in 2006) from India came second, followed on equal points by the German FM Christian Glöckler (born in 2011) in third place. The performances of these youngsters are all the more impressive when you consider the field of participants at the Biel BTZ: 165 players competed, 31 of them with a title, including seven grandmasters. The best Swiss player to finish the tournament was FM Johannes Rappazzo in 19^th place.

Final Ranking after 13 Rounds

165 participants

GM Raetsky first winner of the Biel Freestyle Tournament

It remained a close story right to the end: the four leaders of the Freestyle Chess Tournament all played draws in their direct duels in the final round, meaning that they all finished the tournament in the lead with 5 out of a possible 7 points. In the tie-break classification, it was ultimately GM Alexander Raetsky who emerged as the winner with the best score, making him the winner of the first Freestyle Chess Tournament to be held at the Biel Chess Festival. WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova and Evangelos Kostopoulos followed in second and third place. Elias Girardin finished the tournament in 9^th place as the best Swiss player.

Podium FSC:
1. GM Alexander Raetsky (FID)
2. WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova (UKR)
3. Evangelos Kostopoulos (GRE)

Final standings FSC: https://s2.chess-results.com/tnrWZ.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=7&SNode=S0&tno=1215326  

Outlook

The second rest day for the participants of the Grandmaster Triathlon follows on Monday. Instead, the players of the Master Tournament MTO and the Amateur Tournament ATO will return from their rest day and play the seventh and sixth rounds respectively.

The last two tournaments of the 58^th Biel Chess Festival will also begin on Monday with the two week’s tournaments: the tournaments, which are divided into two strength classes for players rated above and below 1800 Elo, will take place in the morning and finish at midday, leaving the afternoon free for other activities.

The grandmasters will continue with the final phase on Tuesday: in this phase, they will compete against each other once again in three more rounds of classical chess to determine the winner of the GMT-Masters and the GMT-Challengers 2025.

Beauty Award

Every day, the best games from the open tournaments are voted for on social media.

Winner FSC (all rounds):  Alexandros Panagiotopoulos (2089) vs. GM Alexander Raetsky (2307) 0 – 1

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