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ACCENTUS Chess960: Victory for Pragg and Donchenko

Press release by the Biel Chess Festival

The participants of the GMT Masters and Challengers tournaments played the one-day ACCENTUS Chess960 tournament on Saturday. In this variation, the positions of the pieces in the first row are drawn by lot, so the starting position for the players is different from what they are used to. This tournament is not part of the Grandmasters' Triathlon, but its result is still important: in the event of a tie at the end of the GMT Triathlon, the positions in the standings of the ACCENTUS Chess960 serve as a tie-breaker.

Among the players in the GMT-Masters, the top seeded Indian Praggnanandhaa, known as "Pragg", lived up to his role as favourite by winning the Chess960 tournament with 5/7 points.

Among the GMT-Challengers, Alexander Donchenko prevailed in impressive fashion: he remained unbeaten and won with 5 out of 7 points.

Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu

Kick-off to the flagship event of the Biel Chess Festival, the Grandmaster Tournament (GMT)!

This year, it is divided into the GMT-Masters and the GMT-Challengers. The first discipline on the programme was rapid chess. Haik Martirosyan from Armenia proved to be the strongest rapid player, ahead of the Chess960 winner, Praggnanandhaa. Vincent Keymer and L Quang Liem finished level on points with the Indian grandmaster.

As in Chess960, Alexander Donchenko leads the GMT-Challengers ranking. Saleh Salem is the German's closest chaser after the first day of the Triathlon.

An open one-day rapid tournament with 143 participants took place simultaneously in Biel. It was won by Mukhiddin Madaminov from Uzbekistan.

Alexander Donchenko

As in previous years, the Grandmaster Tournament is organised as a triathlon, a mixture of games in different formats: classical, rapid and blitz. In this year's edition, a GMT-Masters and a GMT-Challengers are taking place simultaneously.

In the GMT-Masters, Haik Martirosyan showed that he is a force to be reckoned with in the rapid disciplines. He started the tournament with two wins against Sam Shankland and Vincent Keymer both with the black pieces and was not defeated in the following rounds either. If the Armenian can continue at this level in the slower, classical games, which count more heavily in the scoring, he will be a favourite to take the title. His closest chasers are Praggnanandhaa, Keymer and last year's winner L.

Alexander Donchenko lived up to his role as favourite in the GMT-Challengers: after the rapid games, he leads the tournament table with a one-point lead over Emirati Saleh Salem and stands two points ahead of over Jonas Bjerre and Vaishali Rameshbabu.

Master Class Vol.17 - Boris Spassky

In this video course, experts including Dorian Rogozenco, Mihail Marin, Karsten Mller and Oliver Reeh, examine the games of Boris Spassky. Let them show you which openings Spassky chose to play, where his strength in middlegames were and much more.

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Biel Festival: Martirosyan and Donchenko the strongest in the rapid - Chess News | ChessBase

One of the quiet joys of being a restaurant pastry chef is that you arrive early, typically before anyone else, probably just an hour or two after the last of the line cooks are done scrubbing and sanitizing the splashbacks and lowboys. The room invariably still smells like degreaser and leftover wine, no matter how immaculate. That is, at least until you pop your first espresso shot, then a third and a fourth. Here you make yourself a kind of force field. You get to take time to enjoy the kind of inspiration that being alone in a giant kitchen full of your tools and favorite recipes might bring.

On those mornings, I would use my early arrival as a chance to thumb through my cookbooks. Some of these books were by renowned pastry chefs, but a majority were castoffs from rummage sales and free bins at the library. They were full of recipes that people once exchanged verbally before eventually typing them up and binding them with plastic spirals. In these volumes, I found inspiration and personal stories and often scrap papers with handwritten recipes tucked among the pages.

Then I would get to work on my own recipes. I would roll out a dozen or two pie shells to pop in a freezer and begin my near-daily dance with buttermilk chess pies, where I would be at the center of a carefully choreographed performance of whisking, filling, baking, rotating, cooling.

While it was a very simple recipe, I had, without knowing it, created quite an art of the thing. Timing was essential: never missing a step, never letting my timer outsmart my sense of smell, never letting a young baker crack the door too soon to check the wiggle. I aimed for nothing less than a particular type of perfection with that pie. I knew it, and it knew me. It wasnt quite right unless the crackle appeared on top, the edges were flaky and tender and the bottom was both crisp and soft.

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The Pie Ill Never Shut Up About - The New York Times

Beating a grandmaster, should you manage it, is obviously a huge milestone for any chess player. These days youngsters are beating grandmasters at younger and younger ages with the current record being just eight years old. At 39 years old though, I had yet to beat a grandmaster in the most prestigious format - OTB Classical Chess. A handful of draws and some wins against International Masters were previously my peak OTB results.

In the 2024 Carolinas Classic, I managed to break through and score a win against GM Julio Sadorra. Not only did I manage to eke out the victory, I managed to do it in fantastic fashion, winning a Sicilian sacrificial assault that is easily one of my best games ever.

I already analyzed the game in @JulesGambit's excellent recap of the event, but here also is my video recap of the game.

GM Sadorra was incredibly kind and genuine after the game, laughing as he extended in his hand in resignation, and chatting about the game, UT Dallas, and our families. I wish him all the best in his coaching career at UT Dallas and am honored to have had the chance to play him.

I was inspired in the game by the game Mikhail Tal vs. Bent Larsen from 1965. I've always enjoyed this game. It's one of my absolute favorite Mikhail Tal games. When deliberating over 14.Nf5!?, I recalled the game and the nature of the sacrifice, finding enough similarities to give me confidence that my sacrifice should work as well.

Thanks to the Charlotte Chess Center for a great event, and I hope to have more chances to compete again soon!

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I Beat A Grandmaster In Classical Chess For The 1st Time! - Chess.com

GM Fabiano Caruana won the 2024 SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Croatia with five rounds to spare. Scoring a total of 27 points across the five days, he matched GM Magnus Carlsen's record from 2019 of most points earned in a Grand Chess Tour rapid and blitz event.

GMs Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Alireza Firouzja fought fiercely for the second spot in the remaining rounds but ended up scoring 23 points each for a large tie.

The GCT will conclude back home in St. Louis with the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz on August 10-17 and the Sinquefield Cup on August 17-31.

SuperUnited Croatia Rapid & Blitz Final Standings

To say Caruana was a "clear favorite," going into the final day 4.5 points ahead of the field, is an understatement. At the award ceremony, he said: "The last day was mostly about chasing Magnus' record, which I almost managed, but I realized at some point it's just so difficult. I mean, to collect points when everyone wants to beat you is really tough."

The day started with a comical moment as GM Anish Giri arrived late, just after the ceremonial first moves had been made. He came right in time to look like he was the last guest, on his own board against GM Vidit Gujrathi:

That game, between friends, ended almost instantly in a draw, by the way. But let's jump into the rest of the action.

The tournament continued to play out like a dream for the tournament leader. He clinched it by winning his first three games and drawing the fourth. While he played out the rest of the rounds, he'd already won the $40,000 prize and 13 GCT points.

GM Ian Nepomniachtchi (who celebrated his 34th birthday) suffered his fourth loss in a row (carried over from the previous day) in Sunday's first round, against Caruana. In the opening, Nepomniachtchi sacrificed his knight on g5 with the classic "fishing pole trap" theme, but when he blitzed out 22.e6??, Caruana realized this time the knight really was hanging.

Once again with the black pieces (as he had started the tournament with White twice), Caruana won a full piece in the middlegame again, this time against GM Gukesh Dommaraju by Putting Pressure on the Pinned Piece (PP on the PP).

Caruana was in trouble against Vidit, who achieved a winning position with the two knights against two bishops. But when the Indian GM struggled to find the right way to push the passed pawn, the position swung around and Caruana won the endgame with a great bishop and active king:

With a draw in Sunday's fourth round against Saric, Caruana officially won the tournament. As often happens, after he'd already clinched the title, he lost three games in the second half of the dayand scoring just a half-point more would have broken Carlsen's record.

Still, his final victory against GM Levon Aronian allowed him to match the record with 27 points. It was a crushing win in the Benoni Defense, which Caruana converted with great speed and accuracy. GM Rafael Leitao goes over the full game below.

In a sense, the fight for second place was the greatest intrigue on the final day, as a handful of players were in the running to earn the $30,000 prize. By the time Caruana won the tournament, Firouzja and Vachier-Lagrave were on 19 points and So was on 18.5, and these three were the main contenders for the rest of the tournament.

Vachier-Lagrave's victory against Aronian in Sunday's fifth game was a close contender for Game of the Day. GM Garry Kasparov called the French number-two a "fish in water" when allowed to attack, and the black king was "easy prey for the white pieces" after 19.Rxe6!!, a move that the former world champion spotted instantly himself.

Firouzja was the first player to defeat Caruana, in the fifth round, but he needed a bit of luck in the final round to win on demand against GM Ivan Saric. The Croatian GM overlooked a basic tactic when he played14.e5?. Can you follow in Firouzja's footsteps from Black's side?

Meanwhile, in the sixth round So played the swindle of the day against Vidit, winning a position that most people would consider to be somewhere between "dead lost" and "resignable" for Black.

Nepomniachtchi and Aronian funnily both played a Sicilian Wing Gambit in the same round (respectively, against Saric and against Giri), but their scores from the previous days left them too far behind. Nepomniachtchi also had the last laugh in his saga with So from the previous day:

Gukesh, Giri, Vidit, and Saric rounded out the field at the bottom. It was a painful showing for the Indian challenger in the 2024 FIDE World Championship, but it's not nearly the end of the world. The match, four months away, will be played with a classical time control and not rapid and blitz (excluding tiebreaks).

Caruana leads the Grand Chess Tour ahead of the two final events.

Grand Chess Tour Founder Kasparov joined the broadcast to share his thoughts on several topics.

About Caruana's incredible achievement, he said: "He was definitely the dominant force in Bucharest and, also, to the surprise of many... now his dominance is absolute." About Firouzja, he saw great potential but, "his big weakness is complicated endgames... it remains one of his Achilles heels."

Kasparov admitted that rapid and blitz may become relevant in the upcoming world championship if it reaches tiebreaks, but that it's first and foremost a classical event. At the same time, he made a statement that received more backlash than agreement in the comments on X:

He also revealed that in 2025 the GCT Finals will feature the top four players, with the details of format and qualification still being worked out. This year, the GCT will conclude in St. Louis next month.

How to review?

The 2024 SuperUnited Croatia Rapid & Blitz is the third event of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour and ran July 10-14 in the Westin Hotel in Zagreb, Croatia. The 10 players first competed in a single rapid round-robin with a time control of 25 minutes plus a 10-second increment per move that was followed by a blitz double round-robin with a 5+2 time control.

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Caruana Wins With 5 Rounds To Spare, Matches Carlsen's Record Of 27 Points - Chess.com

The FIDE World Senior Team Chess Championships concluded on July 11 in Krakow, Poland with the U.S. finishing at the top of the 50+ section and England claiming the 65+ tournament. In total, 65 teams and 307 players, including 32 grandmasters, participated.

Teams consisted of four players, and Women's teams competed together with the Open tournaments. Each event was a nine-round Swiss, with 90 minutes for 40 moves, with 30 minutes to the end of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move.

The U.S. team consisted of GMs Jaan Ehlvest, Alexander Shabalov, Melikset Khachiyan, Igor Novikov, and Alex Yermolinsky. The same players, with the exception of Khachiyan replacing GM Gregory Kaidanov, were repeat winners from last year's tournament in North Macedonia.

Top 10 Teams | 50+ Seniors

The U.S. suffered its only loss against Iceland but ultimately won every other round. They took the sole lead after round seven and held onto it.

Round eight was their most dominant, with a 4-0 clean sweep against Israel. On the top board, Ehlvest demolished GM Michael Oratovsky's Sicilian Defense in 20 moves with a pretty finish:

There were six Women's teams, and Estonia outpaced the U.S. team by a half-point. The players were WIM Monika Tsiganova, WFM Regina Narva, WGM Tatyana Fomina, and Kersti Korge. Board-one Tsiganova scored a respectable 6/9, being the underdog in every individual matchup; with a rating of 1999, she had a performance of 2347 and gained 78 rating points.

Her biggest upset was in the last round against FM Karsten Schuster. She unleashed a great attack against the Caro-Kann in that game:

England won gold in the 65+ section, led by GMs John Nunn, Anthony Kosten, Jonathan Mestel, IM Paul Littlewood, and FM Terry Chapman.

Top 10 Teams | 65+ Seniors

(See full standings here.)

It was more than a team victory for England, as legendary GMs Michael Adams and Nunnwho are the reigning individual senior world champions for 50+ and 65+ won individual gold in their respective categories.

England went undefeated, scoring seven victories and two draws. With the exception of round six, when France momentarily took the sole lead, England was always at least tied for first.

Nunn put up a 15-move miniature in the final round against Finland's IM Timothy Binham, with an elegant "sacrifice" on the final move.

Speaking of miniatures, Adams' 19-move win against GM Johan Hjartarson should be mentioned, although it was in the +50 groupanother fine showing for England.

Latvia won Women's gold out of three competing teams (Poland and the U.S.), with +2 -3 =4. The players were WGM Tamara Vilerte, Astra Goldmane, WFM Liga Ungure, WFM Ingrida Priedite, and Vija Rozlapa.

The World Senior Chess Championships, for individuals, will take place in November in Porto Santo, Portugal. And even more presently, the U.S. Senior Championship begins in St. Louis next week, on July 16 through 26.

How to review?

The 2024 FIDE World Senior Team Chess Championships took place in Krakow, Poland on July 2-11. There were 50+ and 65+ categories, with Women's teams competing together with the Open teams. Each event was a nine-round Swiss, with teams of four players. The time control is 90 minutes for 40 moves, with 30 minutes to the end of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move.

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U.S. Wins World Senior Team Championship 50+, England Takes Gold In 65+ - Chess.com