55th Biel International Chess Festival 2022 opens tomorrow

The 55th edition of the Biel International Chess Festival opens tomorrow and will take place from 10-24 July in Biel, Switzerland, featuring more than 15 events. This year’s Biel Chess Festival will be dedicated to the memory of Peter Burri “PeBu” who was involved in the festival in various functions.

The activities of the Biel Chess Festival will start on Sunday, 10.7.2022 at 4 p.m. with the simultaneous exhibition by GM Yu Yangyi who will face 25 amateur players at the Berner Kantonalbank.

The Biel Chess Festival will be officially opened with the opening ceremony in the foyer of the Bieler Kongresshaus on 10.7.2022 at 6 pm. In the presence of Martin Schlup, President of the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern and André Vögtlin, Central President of the Swiss Chess Federation, the President of the Organising Committee, Peter Bohnenblust, will open the 55th edition of the Festival.

We are in full swing for this year's 55th edition of #BielChess ! Some impressions from today's prepartion work at the #BielBienne Congress Centre. Opening on Sunday! pic.twitter.com/DXHBdS4phU

— Biel Chess Festival (@BielFestival) July 8, 2022

The event gathers the world’s chess elite competing in Grandmaster Triathlon (GMT) and Master Tournament (MTO). Eight grandmasters will compete in the Grandmaster Triathlon (GMT) which will be held from 10-22 July at the Main stage of the Concert Hall, Biel Congress Center. The Grandmaster Triathlon will be played in 3 round-robin sets with 28 games: 7 Classical games, 7 Rapid games (reversed colours), and 14 Blitz games (double round-robin). The distribution of points for each game is as follows:

Classical: 4 points for a win; 1½ point for a draw; 0 point for a loss.

Rapid: 2 points for a win; 1 point for a draw; 0 point for a loss.

Blitz: 1 point for a win; ½ point for a draw; 0 point for a loss.

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Grandmaster Triathlon (GMT) line up:

• GM Andrey Esipenko (FIDE, 2709)
• GM Liem Le Quang (VIE, 2709)
• GM Saleh Salem (UAE, 2690)
• GM Vincent Keymer (GER, 2667)
• GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov (UZB, 2661)
• GM Gata Kamsky (USA, 2661)
• GM Gukesh D (IND, 2659)
• GM Arkadij Naiditsch (AZE, 2654)

Final standings of the GMT will be established according to the number of points scored, accumulating the three series (classical + rapid + blitz). In case of a tie, the ranking in the ACCENTUS Chess960 will decide the final ranking of the Triathlon and corresponding prizes. The total prize fund of the Triathlon is 30.500 CHF, with 10.000 CHF reserved for the Winner of the event.

Master Chess Tournament will be played from 13-22 July at the Concert Hall of the Biel Congress Center with participation of 140 players from 23 countries. GM Yu Yangyi, GM Kirill Alekseenko, GM Vladimir Fedoseev, GM Haik Martirosyan, GM Shant Sargsyan with 25 more grandmasters and more than 30 international masters headline the field. (scroll down for starting rank list of players)

The event will be played in 9 rounds, swiss system, with time control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves + 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. The total prize fund is 37.000 CHF, with the Winner prize of 6.000 CHF.

Starting rank list of players – Masters Chess Tournament (MTO):

#		Name	FED	Elo STD
1	GM	Yu, Yangyi	CHN	2720
2	GM	Alekseenko, Kirill	FID	2708
3	GM	Fedoseev, Vladimir	FID	2686
4	GM	Martirosyan, Haik M.	ARM	2672
5	GM	Sargsyan, Shant	ARM	2661
6	GM	Shevchenko, Kirill	UKR	2654
7	GM	Motylev, Alexander	FID	2632
8	GM	Lagarde, Maxime	FRA	2631
9	GM	Iturrizaga Bonelli, Eduardo	ESP	2619
10	GM	Sethuraman, S.P	IND	2613
11	GM	Puranik, Abhimanyu	IND	2612
12	GM	Banusz, Tamas	HUN	2611
13	GM	Chopra, Aryan	IND	2610
14	GM	Huschenbeth, Niclas	GER	2610
15	GM	Ganguly, Surya	IND	2608
16	GM	Erdos, Viktor	HUN	2604
17	GM	Gopal, G. N.	IND	2593
18	GM	Mendonca, Leon Luke	IND	2567
19	GM	Azarov, Sergei	BLR	2566
20	GM	Vokhidov, Shamsiddin	UZB	2552
21	GM	Sychev, Klementy	RUS	2534
22	GM	Petrov, Martin	BUL	2534
23	GM	Iniyan, P	IND	2533
24	GM	Muradli, Mahammad	AZE	2523
25	GM	Gagare, Shardul	IND	2514
26	GM	Narayanan Rajeswari, Visakh	IND	2506
27	GM	Chandra, Akshat	USA	2485
28	IM	Anand, Pranav	IND	2479
29	GM	Raja, Harshit	USA	2479
30	GM	Harishankkar, Bharath Subramaniyam	IND	2479
31	IM	Rathanvel, Vijaya Sivakumar	IND	2478
32	GM	Pavlovic , Milos	SRB	2471
33	IM	Panjwani, Raja	CAN	2450
34	IM	Licznerski, Lukasz	POL	2450
35		Prraneeth, Vuppala	IND	2447
36	IM	Shaikh, Mohammad Nubairshah	IND	2443
37	IM	Osmak, Yuliia	UKR	2434
38	IM	Gurel, Ediz	TUR	2431
39	IM	C R G, Krishna	IND	2430
40	IM	C R G, Krishna	IND	2430
41	IM	Souleidis, Georgios	GRE	2428
42	IM	Korley, Kassa	DEN	2421
43	IM	Hilby, Craig	USA	2420
44	IM	Gaehwiler, Gabriel	SUI	2418
45	IM	Costa, Jean-Luc	SUI	2417
46		Sharma , Dushyant	IND	2416
47		Peyrer , Konstantin	AUT	2410
48	IM	Katz, Alexander	USA	2408
49	IM	Munirethinam, Pranesh	IND	2404
50	IM	Song, Julien	FRA	2402
51	IM	Moksh, Amit Doshi	IND	2398
52	IM	Materia, Marco	FRA	2398
53		Arcuti, Davide	SUI	2390
54	IM	Kilgus, Georg	AUT	2387
55		Derakhshani, Borna	ENG	2384
56	IM	Aziz, Husain	QAT	2379
57	IM	Seul, Georg	GER	2379
58	IM	Haimovich, Tal	ISR	2375
59	IM	Ajay Krishna, S	IND	2372
60	IM	Papadiamandis, Elliot	FRA	2372
61	IM	V S, Raahul	IND	2371
62		Stijve, Theo	SUI	2350
63		Herrera Reyes, Jose Antonio	ESP	2345
64	IM	Unuk, Laura	SLO	2338
65	IM	Sidhant, Mohapatra	IND	2336
66	IM	Gaponenko, Inna	UKR	2332
67		Rajaa, Karthik	IND	2331
68		Velikanov , Alexander	USA	2325
69	IM	Deutsch, Eyal	ISR	2321
70		Elgersma, Onno	NED	2316
71	IM	Kolbus, Dietmar	ENG	2312
72		Sahithi Varshini, Moogi	IND	2312
73	WGM	Nutakki, Priyanka	IND	2303
74		Dishman, Stephen	ENG	2301
75		Bewersdorff, Oliver	GER	2280
76		Aradhya, Garg	IND	2275
77		Schwander, Lukas	SUI	2274
78		Schnepp, Gunnar	AUT	2262
79		Dauth, Benjamin	GER	2234
80		Kittler, Thorsten	GER	2226
81		Ermitsch, Magnus	GER	2222
82	WIM	Lach, Aleksandra	POL	2221
83		Aaron, Deepak	USA	2221
84		Kamber, Bruno	SUI	2218
85		Dey, Mahitosh	IND	2212
86	WIM	Gomez Barrera, Javiera Belen	CHI	2210
87	WIM	Guddanti, Harshita	IND	2208
88		Vasquez Toledo, Cristian	CHI	2206
89		Chatterjee, Aniruddh	IND	2205
90		Lou, Vincent	SUI	2200
91		Schlegel, Igor	SUI	2194
92		Roe, Simon J	ENG	2185
93		Acikel, Mert	GER	2163
94		Jaksland, Tim	DEN	2149
95		Hugentobler, Patrick	SUI	2148
96		Kumar J, Akshit	IND	2145
97		Aydin, Gulenay	TUR	2143
98		Kornitzky, Tino	GER	2141
99		Louis, Thibault	FRA	2140
100		Asllani, Dorian	SUI	2134
101	WIM	Vidonyak, Nellya	GER	2124
102		Shubin, Daniel	USA	2120
103		Nguyen, Thu Giang	AUS	2119
104		Popiól, Michal	POL	2118
105		Foerster-Yialamas, Lucas	GER	2117
106		Mamedov, Edgar	KAZ	2114
107		Mamedov, Edgar	KAZ	2114
108		Jarmany, John	ENG	2111
109		Aarav, Dengla	IND	2109
110	WIM	Bommini, Mounika Akshaya	IND	2108
111		Kunz, Andre	GER	2107
112		Toktomushev, Teimur	UKR	2094
113		Doehler, Tobias	GER	2092
114		Monteverde, Jonathan	SUI	2091
115		Giacomini, Hector	FRA	2084
116		Frey, Fabian	SUI	2083
117		Kueng, Nicolas	SUI	2076
118		Harish, Neeraj	USA	2075
119		Pleyer, Felix	GER	2069
120		Sadeghi, Hassan Roger	SUI	2068
121		Mamalis, Prokopios	GRE	2067
122		Mueller-Dehn, Christian	GER	2063
123		Jaggy, Matteo	SUI	2053
124		Marentini, Marcel	SUI	2053
125		Fehr, Axel, Dr.	GER	2046
126		Borner, Daniel	SUI	2046
127		Hanisch, Sebastian	GER	2044
128		Matsumura, Cocoro	FRA	2041
129		Moerman, Thomas	BEL	2026
130		Abdulrahman Mohammad, Al Taher	UAE	2025
131		Bykov, Alexey	RUS	2021
132		P V S, Aravind	IND	2016
133		Faraone, Ettore	SUI	2016
134		Balzer, Lars	GER	2015
135		Manukonda, Arun	IND	2014
136		Ohler, Julius	GER	2011
137		Jarocka, Liwia	POL	2006
138		Vemparala, Nikash	USA	2003
139		Meduri, Aakaash	USA	2000
140		Collin, Moritz Valentin	SUI	1985