Mishra Shines in Classical, Le Quang Liem Takes Top Honors at 57th Annual Biel International Chess Festival

While GM Christopher Yoo was busy dominating in the U.S. Junior Championship, last year’s champion, GM Abhimanyu Mishra chose not to defend his title, instead electing to play at the 57th Annual Biel International Chess Festival.

The tournament, which has been a yearly staple in the Swiss town of Biel since 1968, boasts an incredible array of winners. Players like Korchnoi, Karpov, Larsen, Anand, Ivanchuk, and Carlsen have all taken home past gold, so it’s no wonder that America’s brightest young prospect wanted a taste of the action. Biel, however, isn’t a standard chess tournament.

The Biel Triathlon is a six-player, multi-leg event with a blitz, rapid, and classical component, followed by a Round Robin classical tournament between the top four competitors. Throughout the tournament, players gain grand prix points (more points for longer games) and, funnily enough, the player with the most points at the end of the tournament wins.

The top overall finishers in the Masters (from left) Haik Martirosyan (L) in second, Le Quang Liem first, and Praggnanandhaa R third (Photo courtesy of the organizers)

The triathlon was split into two sections: Masters and Challengers. The Masters section included the young chess stars GMs Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Vincent Keymer, Haik Martirosyan and Mishra as well as veteran staples GMs Le Quang Liem and Sam Shankland.

The Challengers podium (from left): Alexander Donchenko in second, Salem Saleh first, and Vaishali R third (Photo courtesy of the organizers)

The Challengers section was similarly stuffed with young talent. Junior GMs Jonas Bjerre, Marc’Andria Maurizzi, Ihor Samunekov, and Vaishali Rameshbabu all came looking for a fight, while GMs Alexander Donchenko (26) and Saleh Salem (31) held it down for those of us who have entered chess senescence (25+). Can you find Maurizzi’s knockout blow (solution here):

White to play

In the Masters, no one player won two legs of the competition. “Pragg” managed clear first in the blitz, while Martirosyan dominated the rapid round. Can you spot Pragg’s and Shankland’s blitz tactics against each other below? Or solve for yourself here!

Black to play

Black to play

Perhaps the most surprising result was Mishra’s performance in the classical leg of the competition, scoring 3½/5 and grabbing wins over both Pragg and Shankland. The latter win is a big step forward for the young GM. He’s beaten Shankland before, in a French Winawer back in 2023, but Mishra has publicly stated that Shankland’s Chessable repertoires were crucial to helping him hit grandmaster.

This time, Mishra played 1…c6 against the English, which is Shankland’s main recommendation in his course Black v The English, Reti, and Sidelines. This performance gave the 15-year-old a share of first with Le.

Mishra’s only classical loss came in the final as White against Pragg in a King’s Indian, but his performance at Biel was good enough to maintain his lead as America’s top junior and his spot as the strongest player in the world under the age of 18.

Mishra impressed in the classical portion of the tournament, including a victory over Sam Shankland (Photo courtesy of the organizers)

As for the winner of the whole shebang, Le managed to make the podium in each of the three legs, coming in third in both the Blitz and Rapid events in addition to his share of first in the classical section. With a huge lead in grand prix points going into the final round, Liem didn’t need to do much more than draw out to win the tournament, but he pulled off a very respectable 2/3 performance, grabbing a nice win over Pragg on the black side of a Berlin in the process.

In the Challengers section, GM Salem Salah had an absolutely monster run, crushing the blitz leg with a 9/10 score, while coming in second place in rapid and sharing first in the classical leg. Below are two of Salem’s blitz highlights for your solving pleasure (solution here):

White to play

Black to play

Perhaps the biggest surprise at Biel was the performance of Vaishali Rameshbabu, who, despite being the lowest-rated player in her section, managed a stellar 3½/5 points in the classical leg of the tournament and ended the event with a bronze medal. Her showing has bumped her to the status of the second-highest rated woman in India, behind GM Humpy Koneru.