Gata Kamsky wins 54th Biel GMT 2021, Nihal finishes third

by Shahid Ahmed - 05/08/2021

FIDE World Cup 2007 winner Gata Kamsky beat Vincent Keymer in the final round to win 54th Biel International Chess Festival Grandmaster Triathlon with a score of 35 points. Kirill Alekseenko made 31 points to secure second position. Nihal Sarin who drew all his Classical games except the first one, was placed third with 28.5 points. Vaishali scored her final IM-norm to become India's latest International Master, and she also won the Best Woman prize. Four out of top seven places were claimed by Indian players. Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi and Ganguly were placed fifth, sixth and seventh respectively. Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Karthikeyan finishes second on tie-breaks, Vaishali becomes an IM

Karthikeyan Murali drew his final round game against Gukesh. However the top seed of the tournament, Salem Saleh also finished with the same score 7.0/9. Due to a better tie-break score, Salem won the tournament and Karthikeyan was placed second.

54th Biel GMT Top 3 (L to R): 2nd Kirill Alekseenko, 1st Gata Kamsky and 3rd Nihal Sarin | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

54th Biel MTO Top 3 (L to R): 2nd Karthikeyan Murali, 1st Salem Saleh and 3rd Tamas Banusz | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

GMT R7: Nihal - Lagarde: 0.5-0.5

Nihal had a well contested draw with Lagarde in the final round.

Nihal Sarin drew with Maxime Lagarde | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Keymer - Kamsky: 0-1

Gata Kamsky won the tournament in style by scoring a brilliant victory over Vincent Keymer.

Winner of 54th Biel GMT 2021 - Gata Kamsky | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Biel Chess Festival GMT Round 7 (host GM Arturs Neiksans ) | Video: Biel Chess Festival

MTO R9: Gukesh - Karthikeyan: 0.5-0.5

Gukesh despite being slightly better for the majority of the game, it was not enough to beat Karthikeyan.

Gukesh drew with Karthikeyan | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Sethuraman - Erdos: 0-1

Sethuraman was completely winning against GM Viktor Erdos (HUN) until he lost his advantage and then missed a draw in the endgame.

Position after 32...Rh6

White needed to prevent the rook's invasion of first rank. Thus, 33.f4 Rg6+ 34.Rg5 would have been a better idea than 33.Rfd1.

Position after 66...Kb4

White can no longer go for a win here but he can certainly try to salvage a draw. Find out the correct plan for White.

Sethuraman would have secured fourth place if he had won his game against Erdos | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Erigaisi - Chigaev: 1-0

Arjun Erigaisi scored a fantastic victory against GM Maksim Chigaev (RUS) in the final round.

Position after 43.e6

White set himself up a crushing attack and there is no way for Black to save after 43.e6. Black continued the fight and eventually he resigned on the verge of getting checkmated by a bishop and knight.

6th GM Arjun Erigaisi 6.5/9 | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Arjun Kalyan - Ganguly: 0-1

Ganguly played the double bishop endgame masterfully against GM Arjun Kalyan to score a victory.

Position after 35.h4

White needed to play 35.f4 and everything would have been fine. 35.h4 gave Black the opening he was looking for.

Photo Gallery

54th Biel GMT 2021 podium finishers - Alekseenko, Gelfand and Nihal | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

54th Biel MTO 2021 podium finishers - Karthikeyan, Salem and Banusz | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

All participants of 54th Biel GMT along with the officials | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

The GMT medals | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Women top three (L to R) - Eric Jovana, Vaishali and Tijana Blagojevic | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Gata Kamsky shares his thoughts | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Nihal has earned the legend Kamsky's respect | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

India's 69th GM Harshit Raja with his final GM-norm certificate | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

WGM Vaishali with her final IM-norm certificate, with Angelika Valkova | Photo: Biel Chess Festival

Highlights

Here are a few interesting finishes from MTO Round 9

GM Salem Saleh (UAE) defeated GM Pavel Eljanov (UKR)

GM Arjun Kalyan lost to GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly

GM Visakh N R won against WGM R Vaishali

Replay GMT Round 7 games

Replay MTO Round 9 games

GMT Round 7 results

Bo.	No.	Rtg		Name	Result		Name	Rtg	No.
1	4	2675	GM	Gelfand Boris	1 - 0	GM	Studer Noel	2581	8
2	5	2630	GM	Pichot Alan	½ - ½	GM	Alekseenko Kirill	2699	3
3	6	2620	GM	Nihal Sarin	½ - ½	GM	Lagarde Maxime	2648	2
4	7	2591	GM	Keymer Vincent	0 - 1	GM	Kamsky Gata	2658	1

Details

Final standings

Details

MTO Round 9 results

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	15	GM	Gukesh Dommaraju	2578	6	½ - ½	6½	GM	Murali Karthikeyan	2606	12
2	1	GM	Saleh Salem A.R.	2682	6	1 - 0	6	GM	Eljanov Pavel	2671	2
3	4	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	2644	5½	0 - 1	5½	GM	Erdos Viktor	2614	10
4	6	GM	Banusz Tamas	2631	5½	1 - 0	5½	GM	Sadhwani Raunak	2555	20
5	19	GM	Erigaisi Arjun	2567	5½	1 - 0	5½	GM	Chigaev Maksim	2630	7
6	22	GM	Kantor Gergely	2527	5½	½ - ½	5	GM	R Praggnanandhaa	2608	11
7	28	IM	Kalyan Arjun	2503	5	0 - 1	5	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	2625	8
8	9	GM	Narayanan S.L.	2624	5	½ - ½	5	GM	Wagner Dennis	2572	17
9	29	IM	Raja Harshit	2484	5	0 - 1	5	GM	Fedorchuk Sergey	2598	13
10	27	GM	Budisavljevic Luka	2509	5	½ - ½	4½	GM	Dragnev Valentin	2569	18
11	30	IM	NR Vignesh	2428	4½	½ - ½	4½	GM	Donchenko Alexander	2652	3
12	35	IM	Haimovich Tal	2388	4½	0 - 1	4½	GM	Puranik Abhimanyu	2589	14
13	31	IM	Gschnitzer Adrian	2420	4½	0 - 1	4½	GM	Yuffa Daniil	2578	16
14	23	GM	Valsecchi Alessio	2527	4½	1 - 0	4½	IM	Unuk Laura	2407	32
15	48	WGM	Eric Jovana	2250	4½	0 - 1	4½	GM	Tang Andrew	2525	24

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Final standings

Rk.	SNo		Name	Typ	sex	FED	RtgI	RtgN	Pts.	TB1	TB2	Rp	w-we
1	1	GM	Saleh Salem A.R.			UAE	2682	0	7,0	47,5	355,0	2790	1,19
2	12	GM	Murali Karthikeyan			IND	2606	0	7,0	46,0	360,5	2743	1,61
3	6	GM	Banusz Tamas			HUN	2631	0	6,5	47,0	353,5	2708	0,98
4	10	GM	Erdos Viktor			HUN	2614	0	6,5	43,0	340,0	2627	0,61
5	15	GM	Gukesh Dommaraju	U20		IND	2578	0	6,5	41,5	345,0	2600	0,43
6	19	GM	Erigaisi Arjun	U20		IND	2567	0	6,5	41,0	337,0	2591	0,54
7	8	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar			IND	2625	0	6,0	47,5	350,0	2665	0,53
8	2	GM	Eljanov Pavel			UKR	2671	0	6,0	46,0	356,5	2689	0,26
9	13	GM	Fedorchuk Sergey			UKR	2598	0	6,0	42,5	347,5	2626	0,44
10	22	GM	Kantor Gergely			HUN	2527	0	6,0	40,0	333,5	2524	0,33
11	17	GM	Wagner Dennis			GER	2572	0	5,5	46,0	357,0	2583	0,44
12	4	GM	Sethuraman S.P.			IND	2644	0	5,5	45,5	335,0	2590	-0,51
13	11	GM	R Praggnanandhaa	U20		IND	2608	0	5,5	45,0	344,5	2608	0,11
14	7	GM	Chigaev Maksim			RUS	2630	0	5,5	43,0	336,0	2589	-0,38
15	23	GM	Valsecchi Alessio			ITA	2527	0	5,5	43,0	331,0	2597	1,00
16	24	GM	Tang Andrew			USA	2525	0	5,5	42,5	340,5	2562	0,68
17	9	GM	Narayanan S.L.			IND	2624	0	5,5	42,5	317,5	2579	-0,43
18	20	GM	Sadhwani Raunak	U20		IND	2555	0	5,5	41,5	334,0	2558	0,32
19	14	GM	Puranik Abhimanyu			IND	2589	0	5,5	41,0	343,0	2511	-0,70
20	25	GM	NR Visakh			IND	2516	0	5,5	40,0	336,5	2516	0,25

Details

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