Chess - The Scotsman 25/07/12

ROLL out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, as Nat King Cole would say.

But there’s not much chance to sit back and relax in the sunshine (if you can find it, that is), as this is a busy period on the chess calendar, with one great tournament ending only for another to begin.

Following Dortmund in Germany, the circus moves to the opposite end of the Alps for another long-time chess festival that got underway this week, with the 45th annual Biel Chess Festival in Switzerland running till the end of the month.

First contested in 1968, Biel has gone on to become a standard summer fixture, with grandmaster all-play-alls introduced to their cosmopolitan festival mix in 1976. This year, though, it has eclipsed Dortmund on playing strength with half the field in the six-player double rounder in the top ten: world No 1 Magnus Carlsen, No 7 Hikaru Nakamura and No 9 Alexander Morozevich. The other three are also no easy-beats either: Wang Hao (No 15), Etienne Bacrot (No 31) and Anish Giri (No 49).

In the opening round, Carlsen and Nakamura drew; Wang Hao crushed Bacrot; and in today’s diagram, Morozevich, one of the best tactical players in the world, uncharacteristically missed a winning tactic against Giri by opting for 33 f4? and losing. Instead, he had the tactical trick of 33 Qh6+! - the point being that 33 ....Kxh6 (33 ...Kg8 34 Qh8+! leads to the same thing) there’s 34 Nxf7+ with the fork winning the endgame.

Wang Hao - E Bacrot

45th Biel GM Tournament, (1)

King’s Indian Defence

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Nf3 0–0 6 Be2 e5 7 0–0 Nc6 8 d5 Ne7 9 b4 Nh5 10 g3 f5 11 Ng5 Nf6 12 Bf3 c6 13 Ba3 cxd5 14 exd5 e4 15 Be2 h6 16 Ne6 Bxe6 17 dxe6 f4 18 Qd2 f3 19 Bd1 Qc8 20 Re1 Qxc4 21 Bb3 Qa6 22 Bb2 Rad8 23 Nxe4 Nxe4 24 Rxe4 Bxb2 25 Qxb2 d5 26 Re3 Rd6 27 Rae1 Qb6 28 Bd1 a5 29 b5 Nf5 30 e7 Re8 31 Re5 Qc7 32 Bxf3 Rxe7 33 Rxe7 Nxe7 34 Qe5 Kf8 35 Qh8+ Ng8 36 Re8+ 1–0