Salem Wins Biel Challengers, Mishra Misses Chance In Masters
GM Saleh Salem has won the Challengers Triathlon of the 2024 Biel Chess Festival with two days to spare after surviving a sacrificial attack to beat GM Vaishali Rameshbabu and take an unassailable lead. In the Masters, GM Liem Le was on the ropes against GM Abhimanyu Mishra but held on to make a draw, which was also the result in GM Haik Martirosyan vs. GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu after the players traded exchange sacrifices.
The second round of the Finals starts Wednesday, July 24, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.
Monday was the final rest day in Biel, and it was time for some basketball.
Arne Kaehler from #chessbase , organized a friendly match with some GMTs and MTOs of the #bielchess festival! Players - @leonkingof64 @vincentkeymer2004 @ArneKaehler @demchsveta @Harsha_Chess and the GMs Jonas Bjerre & Alexander Donchenko. #chess #grandmaster pic.twitter.com/kgbEUnD3ll
— Biel Chess Festival (@BielFestival) July 23, 2024
Then the remaining seven players in the Masters and Challengers Triathlons faced each other, with two games in the Masters and just one in the Challengers. GM Alexander Donchenko had an extra rest day.
Masters And Challengers Results: Finals Round 1
Salem's win over Vaishali was enough to clinch overall victory in the Challengers, while all four players are still fighting for first place in the Masters.
Masters And Challengers Standings After Finals Round 1
Challengers: Salem Clinches Title With Two Days To Spare
After scoring a phenomenal 9/10 in Sunday's Blitz, Salem knew he only needed a draw against Vaishali in classical chess to clinch overall victory. He admitted to being nervous:
"I was a bit under pressure because I almost decided the tournament since the Blitz, but I wanted to play good in classical games."
Vaishali, meanwhile, knew that only a win with the black pieces would give her a chance of claiming the title. She went all-in, with a bold knight sacrifice.
The move had been on Salem's radar, but he thought it didn't work: "I know it exists, but I was shocked when she did it!"
It was one of those cases where both players were essentially right. Objectively the move isn't the best, but in what followed Vaishali equalized and was even slightly better at some points, while if she'd found a wonderful tactical resource she would have been winning unless her opponent found a very missable reply. In the end, however, a blunder left Black's task hopeless, and Salem was unstoppable.
That was Vaishali's first loss, while with an 11-point lead over Donchenko, Salem had clinched overall victory. The games will be played out, with Vaishali taking on Donchenko on Wednesday, before the tournament ends with Salem-Donchenko on Thursday.
Masters: Two Fighting Draws
With only five points separating leader Le from Praggnanandhaa and Mishra in joint third place, there was everything to play for in the Masters. There still is after the first round of the final games, which ended in two tense draws.
Martirosyan 1.5-1.5 Praggnanandhaa
Martirosyan still has everything in his own hands after making a draw, but it felt like he had chances for more when Praggnanandhaa thought for 30 minutes before playing 14...Qe8!? instead of the alternative 14...g5. Two exchange sacrifices would follow.
The other game came even closer to seeing blood spilled.
Le 1.5-1.5 Mishra
Mishra struggled in the Blitz, but before that in classical chess he'd scored two wins and made three draws for a 2860 rating performance and a gain of 17.2 points. In the first classical game of the final stage he picked up another 1.7 rating points, but he couldn't quite topple the leader.
Le got tangled up, particularly when he spent 20 minutes, almost his whole time advantage over Mishra, on 24.f4?!
That draw kept a three-point lead for Le, the winner in 2022 and 2023. He has a tricky finish as he hunts a hat-trick, however, since he now has the black pieces against Praggnanandhaa and then Martirosyan.
How to watch?
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Arturs Neiksans and Angelika Valkova.
The 2024 Biel Chess Festival runs July 13-26 in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, and features over 20 individual events. The main ones are the six-player Masters and Challengers GM Triathlons where the players compete in five rounds of Rapid chess (2 points for a win/1 for a draw), five rounds of Classical (4/1.5), and 10 rounds of Blitz (1/0.5). The top four then play three more rounds of Classical against each other, with colors reversed. Ties are settled by the standings of the Chess960 tournament held on the opening day.
Previous coverage:
- Day 8: Praggnanandhaa Survives As Salem Crushes Challengers In Blitz
- Day 7: Praggnanandhaa Bounces Back As Vaishali Misses Win In Last Seconds
- Day 6: Keymer Beats Praggnanandhaa As Le, Salem Snatch Lead
- Day 5: Vaishali Enters Top 10 With 3rd Win In A Row
- Day 4: Vaishali, Mishra Continue Giant-Killing In Biel
- Day 3: Vaishali Beats Top Seed As Praggnanandhaa Falls To Mishra
- Days 1-2: Praggnanandhaa, Martirosyan, Donchenko Star As Biel Chess Festival Begins
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
