Media Bulletin
After twelve intensive tournament days, the two tournament favourites Fedoseev and Aravindh are tied on 28 ½ points each, meaning that the tie-break classification of the Chess960 tournament had to decide in Fedoseev’s favour. Saleh Salem will stand next to them on the podium in third place.
Rinat Jumabayev secured third place in the GMT-Challengers alongside winner Nikolas Theodorou and runner-up Aram Hakobyan.
Karthikeyan Murali won the traditional open Master Tournament MTO, ahead of Pranav Anand and Mustafa Yilmaz.
A decision by a hair’s breadth in the GMT Masters
In the end, it was the two players who started the Biel tournament as favourites according to their reputations, Vladimir Fedoseev, world number 16, and Aravindh Chithambaram, world number 24, who came out on top. After 23 games played in the classical, rapid and blitz categories, they have exactly the same number of points (28 ½). The decisive factor in Fedoseev’s favour in this case was the separate ACCENTUS Chess960 tournament on the first day, in which Fedoseev performed better.
Saleh Salem’s third place is certainly more of a surprise: the Emirati actually started the tournament as an outsider: He is the only one of the Masters participants not to be ranked among the top 100 in the world. However, last year’s winner of the GMT-Challengers, already at the Biel Chess Festival for the 11th time, showed with an outstanding performance that he feels at ease in Biel.
Aravindh, who started the last round as the leader, would have needed more than today’s draw to win the tournament. However, the game against Volodar Murzin was very even and Aravindh was unable to create any opportunities to attack for victory. The game between Fedoseev and Salem was different: in a straightforward game Fedoseev proved that he is one of the world’s top players.
Masters winner Vladimir Fedoseev
Games
GMT-Masters: Final ranking
|
Rank |
Name |
Games |
Classical |
Rapid |
Blitz |
Total |
|
1 |
GM Vladimir FEDOSEEV |
23 |
14 |
7 |
7 ½ |
28 ½ ** |
|
2 |
GM ARAVINDH Chithambaram |
23 |
15 ½ |
7 |
6 |
28 ½ ** |
|
3 |
GM Saleh SALEM |
23 |
16 ½ |
2 |
6 |
24 ½ |
|
4 |
GM Volodar MURZIN |
23 |
14 ½ |
5 |
4 |
23 ½ |
|
5 |
GM Radoslaw WOJTASZEK * |
20 |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
6 |
GM Frederik SVANE * |
20 |
4 ½ |
3 |
2 ½ |
10 |
* not qualified for final phase
** Tie-break: The score from the ACCENTUS Chess960 decides the rank in the event of a tie
Challengers: A marathon for third place
Both games in the GMT-Challengers ended in a draw today, but their character could not have been more different: A sprint and a marathon.
Unsurprisingly, the game between Aram Hakobyan and Nikolas Theodorou was like a sprint. The top two places on the podium were already set for them before this round. Accordingly, they quickly agreed on a draw: The game ended after just 15 moves and the two enjoyed a pleasant afternoon.
The complete opposite happened in the other game between David Navara and Rinat Jumabayev, in which the battle for bronze was decided in a veritable marathon. Navara had to play to win in order to reach third place.
He made every effort to do so, but was never able to gain a relevant advantage. Worse still, he made a mistake in an attempt to decide the balanced queen’s endgame in his favour and had to fight to avoid losing the game. At least he managed to do so, so that the game ended in a draw after more than six hours and 110 moves. With this result, it is ultimately Rinat Jumabayev, last year’s winner of the Biel Master Tournament MTO, who will stand on the podium in third place alongside Nikolas Theodorou and Aram Hakobyan.
Games
GMT-Challengers: Final ranking
|
Rank |
Name |
Games |
Classical |
Rapid |
Blitz |
Total |
|
1 |
GM Nikolas THEODOROU |
23 |
19 ½ |
8 |
6 |
33 ½ |
|
2 |
GM Aram HAKOBYAN |
23 |
14 ½ |
7 |
7 |
28 ½ |
|
3 |
GM Rinat JUMABAYEV |
23 |
13 |
4 |
3 |
20 |
|
4 |
GM David NAVARA |
23 |
11 ½ |
2 |
5 |
18 ½ |
|
5 |
GM MA Qun * |
20 |
6 |
5 |
4 |
15 |
|
6 |
GM Daniel DARDHA * |
20 |
4 ½ |
4 |
5 |
13 ½ |
* not qualified for final phase
Karthikeyan Murali wins the Master Tournament
GM Karthikeyan Murali from India won the Biel Master Tournament, which was held for the 58th time in 2025. He was the only one of the top trio to win in the final round: In the decisive game against GM Benjamin Bok, Karthikeyan played extremely precisely and was able to build up a steadily growing advantage, which ultimately forced Bok to resign.
Karthikeyan, who scored 8 points over 10 rounds, was followed by five players with 7 ½ points. GM Pranav Anand (IND) and GM Mustafa Yilmaz (TUR) finished in second and third place with the best tie-break score. IM Fabian Bänziger was the best Swiss player to finish the tournament in 13th place, while the best woman was WFM Alexandra Shvedova in 25th place. This year, 112 people from 27 countries as diverse as Australia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Israel took part in the Master Tournament.
Karthikeyan Murali
Podium MTO:
1. GM Karthikeyan Murali (IND)
2. GM Pranav Anand (IND)
3. GM Mustafa Yilmaz (TUR)
_REPLACE_BY_ADV_1
Games
Final ranking MTO
| 1 | GM | Karthikeyan, Murali | 2650 | 8 | 0 |
| 2 | GM | Pranav, Anand | 2566 | 7,5 | 0 |
| 3 | GM | Yilmaz, Mustafa | 2586 | 7,5 | 0 |
| 4 | GM | Karthik, Venkataraman | 2540 | 7,5 | 0 |
| 5 | GM | Pranesh, M | 2592 | 7,5 | 0 |
| 6 | IM | Poh, Yu Tian | 2458 | 7,5 | 0 |
| 7 | GM | Bok, Benjamin | 2593 | 7 | 0 |
| 8 | IM | Dau, Khuong Duy | 2456 | 7 | 0 |
| 9 | IM | Banh, Gia Huy | 2445 | 7 | 0 |
| 10 | FM | Gloeckler, Christian | 2439 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 11 | GM | Sasikiran, Krishnan | 2531 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 12 | IM | Arfan, Aditya Bagus | 2385 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 13 | IM | Baenziger, Fabian | 2450 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 14 | Chen, Yuan | 2286 | 6,5 | 0 | |
| 15 | FM | Soo, Kai Jie | 2240 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 16 | GM | Panchanathan, Magesh Chandran | 2454 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 17 | FM | Adewumi, Tanitoluwa | 2397 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 18 | Chen, Jun-Wei | 1906 | 6,5 | 0 | |
| 19 | IM | Sanket, Chakravarty | 2301 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 20 | FM | Latorre, Vincent | 2326 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 21 | GM | Gruenfeld, Yehuda | 2367 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 22 | FM | Lacan Rus, David | 2369 | 6,5 | 0 |
| 23 | FM | Otsuka, Shou | 2362 | 6 | 0 |
| 24 | FM | Kueppers, Timo | 2292 | 6 | 0 |
| 25 | WFM | Shvedova, Alexandra | 2204 | 6 | 0 |
Tkhoruk wins the Amateur Tournament ATO
The Amateur Tournament for players with an Elo rating below 2000 also came to an end on Thursday. Roman Tkhoruk, born in 2012, won the tournament. Tkhoruk won seven games and only drew twice: against Simon Künzli and Ding Shirui, the two other players who will stand next to him on the podium. Künzli also remained undefeated, but had to concede one more draw than Tkhoruk. Ding lost one game at the beginning of the tournament, but was able to win all her games thereafter apart from the draw against Tkhoruk. This year’s Amateur Tournament had a total of 109 participants from 16 countries.
Podium ATO:
1. Roman Tkhoruk (SUI)
2. Simon Künzli (SUI)
3. Ding Shirui (CHN)
Still in progress: The week’s tournaments
The two week’s tournaments WT2 and WT1 will only come to an end on Friday. After four rounds, several players are still tied for the lead in both tournaments.
Interim Ranking WT2: https://s1.chess-results.com/tnrWZ.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=4&SNode=S0&tno=1215329
Interim Ranking WT1: https://s2.chess-results.com/tnrWZ.aspx?lan=1&art=1&rd=4&SNode=S0&tno=1215328
Outlook
The 58th edition of the Biel International Chess Festival will officially end with the closing ceremony and award ceremonies on Friday at 10.30 am. The event in the lobby of the Biel Congress Centre is open to the public and visitors are welcome.
In the morning, the last round of the week’s tournaments WT2 and WT1 will take place, the last games of chess on the occasion of this year’s festival.
Beauty Award
Every day, the best games from the open tournaments are voted for on social media.
Winner WT1 RD3: Philippe Zarri (1576) vs. Didier Casner ( – ) 1 – 0
