Chess

How does White win?

The 44th Biel Chess Festival concluded on Friday, and it proved to be a big success for the fans, as the six players (five of them past champions) in the top grandmaster event treated us to exciting chess as they tore into each other with wild abandon.

For financial reasons, six-player tournaments are all the rage nowadays. But with just three games a day they can tempt for the odd off-day, with a series of tame draws. To encourage more fighting chess, the organisers opted to adopt the 3/1/0 so-called football-scoring system (rather than the more conventional 1/0.5/0).

However, they had nothing to worry about. With sponsorship from the charitable foundation Accentus securing the participation of part-time catwalk model and the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, his desire to win at all costs is becoming legendary. Also among the mix in the field was Alexander Morozevich and Alexei Shirov, neither of whom are exactly shrinking violets.

But in the end, the scoring system heavily favoured Carlsen who – despite a mini scare in losing to the young French star Maxime Vachier-Lagrave – proved unstoppable with a series of wins that gave him victory with a round to spare ahead of his closest rival, Morozevich, who nevertheless reinforced his return to elite status with a second top-notch performance in as many months.

Final standings: 1. M Carlsen (Norway), 19/30; 2. A Morozevich (Russia), 17; 3-4. M Vachier-Lagrave (France) and A Shirov (Spain), 12; 5. F Caruana (Italy), 10; 6. Y Pelletier (Switzerland), 5.

M Carlsen - F Caruana

Biel ACCENTUS GM, (4)

Scotch Opening

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Bc5 5 Nxc6 bxc6 6 Bd3 Qh4 7 Qe2 Ne7 8 Nc3 0–0 9 Be3 Bb6 10 0–0 d5 11 exd5 Nxd5 12 Bd2 Bd4 13 Rae1 Nb4 14 Qe4 Qxe4 15 Bxe4 Ba6 16 Ne2 Bc5 17 a3 Nd5 18 b4 Bd6 19 Nd4! Bxf1 20 Kxf1 Nb6 21 Nxc6 Rfe8 22 a4 Kf8 23 a5 Nc4 24 Bc1 a6 25 f4 Re6 26 Bd5 Rf6 27 Re4 1–0