Praggnanandhaa Beats Mishra To End Biel Chess In 3rd Place
GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu bounced back from his loss the day before to score a convincing win over GM Abhimanyu Mishra and end the 2024 Biel Chess Festival in third place. GM Liem Le had wrapped up victory a day earlier, while Haik Martirosyan took second and Mishra had to settle for fourth, though the 15-year-old still had the second-best performance in classical chess.
The rankings had already been decided in the Challengers with a day to spare, but second to fourth were still up for grabs in the Masters. This is how they finished:
Final Standings: Masters And Challengers
Masters: Praggnanandhaa Hits Back, Martirosyan Takes Second
One game never looked likely to produce a decisive result.
Martirosyan 1.5-1.5 Le
A day earlier, Le had clinched the Biel Chess title for a third year in a row. If he could win with Black—and that wasn't out of the question since his earlier three classical wins had all come with the black pieces, then he'd have the bragging rights of overtaking World Champion Ding Liren to move to world number 15. But he also didn't want to spoil a near-perfect event:
I wanted to get a game, but also I didn’t want to take too much risk, because it wouldn’t be nice to finish the tournament with a loss, and I think in the last two years I always had one or two losses in the classical part of the tournament, so this year I thought if I could finish the tournament without losing it would be nice!
I thought if I could finish the tournament without losing it would be nice!
—Liem Le
Martirosyan, meanwhile, had thought that his draw in the penultimate round would give him a chance to fight for the title in the last round. Instead, Le's win over Praggnanandhaa meant the title had gone, while a draw in the last round would clinch him second place. That's why he had nothing against an eighth classical draw in a row!
I was thinking I would do my best in the last round, and if I beat him, I will finish first, but he played a very good game yesterday and, unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to win the tournament. That’s why I thought, OK, I have still a lot of tournaments, it’s better to keep my energy.
Martirosyan tested his opponent's opening knowledge, found it was solid, and by move 16 said he'd already decided on taking a draw. Le had no objections, and the game fizzled out into a 41-move draw.
The other game in the Masters, however, was vastly more interesting.
Mishra 0-4 Praggnanandhaa
Everything that had gone wrong for top-seed Praggnanandhaa in Biel had begun in the first classical game, where he misplayed a sacrificial attack and was confidently ground down by Mishra. The world number eight would go on to lose another two classical games, meaning that all that was left by the final round was to try and regain some rating and pride with a consolation win. That's just what he got!
Mishra went for the Samisch with 3.f3 against Praggnanandhaa's King's Indian setup, and we were in well-known theory until 6...Nfd7!? came as a shocker. There are eight more popular moves (6...c5 has been played over a thousand times), while the move in the game had never been played at the top level. Had Mishra fallen into some leftover Candidates preparation?
The move puzzled the commentators as well as Le and Martirosyan, with Le wondering what the plan was after 7.Be3.
We never got to see that since Mishra thought for 10 minutes and went for 7.Bg5, and soon Praggnanandhaa was playing the game in Benko Gambit style by sacrificing a pawn with b5 and then a6.
After 10.Qd2?! (the computer prefers 10.a4 or 10.Ng3) Black was able to take over.
10...Ne5! was a triumphant justification of the earlier knight move, and Black's pieces went on to terrorize White's army until it became a matter of choosing the most efficient kill. 28...Rxc3 was only the computer's third choice, but it was perfectly sufficient.
Praggnanandhaa sacs an exchange as he looks to end the #BielChess Masters with a win! https://t.co/F0mFSHBriq pic.twitter.com/asNPvjP8X1
— chess24 (@chess24com) July 25, 2024
By the final stages, Mishra was playing on with a rook against a queen, and there were echoes of their first game in Biel when a despondent Praggnanandhaa had played on at the end with a rook and a piece down. Mishra didn't drag things out too long, however, and resigned on move 45.
That win wasn't enough to see Praggnanandhaa return to the top 10, but it limited the rating damage to 8.4 points and saw him finish in third place—he also won the Blitz and the Chess960, which would have been used as a tiebreaker if required.
Biel Masters Final Standings Breakdown
As you can see, despite that one loss, Mishra was the second-highest scorer in classical chess. He picked up 16.7 rating points and is three years younger than anyone higher rated than him on the 2700chess junior rating list.
Watch out for 13-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, however, with the Turkish GM-elect on the brink of smashing the record for the youngest player ever to cross a 2600 rating.
Challengers: Salem And Donchenko Rest On Their Laurels
There was also one game remaining in the Challengers, but with all the places already determined there was little for the winner, GM Saleh Salem, to play for against the player guaranteed to take second place, GM Alexander Donchenko. A 6.Bg5 Najdorf Sicilian fizzled out after queens were exchanged on move 12, leaving the final standings as follows.
Biel Challengers Final Standings Breakdown
The top two placings were deserved, with Salem winning the Classical and Blitz, while Donchenko took the Rapid and Chess960, but, despite two losses at the end, GM Vaishali Rameshbabu's performance was arguably the most impressive of the tournament. Her earlier run of three classical wins in a row saw her end with a 17.5-point Elo gain to enter the 2500-club.
And that's a wrap for Biel Chess 2024!
How to rewatch?
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 10: Liem Le Beats Praggnanandhaa To Win 3rd Biel Chess Title In A Row
- Day 9: Salem Wins Biel Challengers, Mishra Misses Chance In Masters
- 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.
