It seems that yesterday’s bloodshed took some toll on the players in Biel.

Still, it is primarily Nico Georgiadis’s effort that ensured that all games finished in a draw. By ultra-aggressive and valiant play he managed to draw with the World Champion! In spite of losing the first three games, they didn’t go without a hidden benefit. When you play stronger opponents they are forcing you to raise your level of play. And it seems that three games were enough for Nico to raise his level enough to draw the World Champion!

Carlsen chose the French Defence, but don’t forget that all his opening choices are made with the title match in mind. Nico most likely didn’t expect the Armenian Variation, yet he still continued boldly. Soon enough he sacrificed material and even the engine approved of his decision! The pressure was enough even for the World Champion to crack and fail to find the best moves.

As you can see, the game was extremely complicated and even with a help of an engine I couldn’t really pinpoint a clear win for Black except on move 26. Nobody likes being attacked and this goes for the World Champion too! A fantastic result for Nico and a reminder to all that with courage no battle is hopeless.

Mamedyarov and Svidler played a Fianchetto Grunfeld where White was pressing but Black defended well. In another Grunfeld, Navara and Vachier played an exciting game.

We had bloodshed in Biel, we had draws. What’s next?

With all eyes on the World Champion the Biel tournament is shaping up to be quite a brutal one.

After 3 rounds what I noticed is that Carlsen is playing much sharper and aggressive chess in Biel. In Round 1 he sacrificed a queen against Navara in order to keep the game going, though he knew he wasn’t risking much. In Round 2 he played the Pirc against Vachier, showing aggressive intentions even with Black against one of the world’s best players. In Round 3 he played the sharpest 6 Bg5 against Svidler’s Najdorf.

I see this as a preparation for the match in November – no matter what they say, both Carlsen and Caruana have their sights on the match and everything else fades in comparison. All the games they play until London are aimed at improving their chances in that match. Carlsen’s shift to more aggressive chess is an indication that perhaps he thinks that he won’t be able to overcome Caruana only by technical means. Be as it may, it’s great to see the Champion play open and attacking chess.

The inaccuracies permitted by Carlsen show that perhaps he is not 100% at ease in these sharp Najdorf positions, but then again it is an encouraging sign that the World Champion is looking for ways to expand his (already very wide) horizons.

Another player on fire in Biel is Mamedyarov. He destroyed Georgiadis in Round 1, escaped from a lost position against Navara in Round 2 and beat Vachier in Round 3 thanks to some original opening play.

Svidler is half a point behind the leaders thanks to a complex win against Georgiadis, while Vachier already lost 2 games and is in need of a quick come-back. With 0.5/3 he is only 1 point ahead of Anand on the live rating list as world’s number 10!

Navara is on 50% thanks to a win against Georgiadis (who sacrificed a queen for interesting positional compensation), while Nico is last will three losses, but I think he is still looking forward to all the remaining games, especially the one tomorrow against Carlsen!

It looks like the bloodshed in Biel with continue and that can only make me happy!

Finishing with two White wins Nepomniachtchi won the tournament with an impressive 5/7. One of those White wins was against the over-ambitious (as usual) Kramnik.

Funny thing this Kramnik style. So pleasurable to watch, but if you root for him, as I often do, it hurts to see him become so unstable. Botvinnik used to talk about the necessity for “self-programming” after a certain age and by that he meant taking advantages of the accumulated experience in order to compensate for the loss of calculating power and energy. This is what Anand is trying to do and more or less successfully.

Kramnik, on the other hand, is doing completely the opposite. He’s trying to fight the younger players on their territory – getting a game out of the opening, thus expending energy from the early stages of the game, and then being as aggressive as possible, relying on his calculational abilities and energy levels, both of which are clearly inferior when compared to the younger players. He may be enjoying chess playing like this, but his results will unavoidably become only worse.

As I don’t see Kramnik change his approach I think his days in the Top 10 are numbered and that number is pretty low. Of course, this depends on the next tournament he plays, but each tournament is just another realistic opportunity to lose points and fall lower.

Here’s that game with Nepomniachtchi.

Nepo wasn’t without the usual winner’s luck. In the next round he escaped from a lost position to Duda.

In the last round Nepo demolished Meier’s super-solid French and won irrelevant of the results of the other games.

After losing to Kovalev, Giri made a nice comeback, winning twice with the Black pieces. He beat out-of-form Nisipeanu in a Najdorf and he beat his recent boss Kramnik. Perhaps it is more precise to say Kramnik committed a hara-kiri with his absurd winning attempts, but that doesn’t diminish Giri’s merit.

Giri even could have finished clear second had he won a winning position against Duda in the last round, but it wasn’t to be. Both players finished shared second with 4/7.

This leaves the unsung hero of the tournament, the Aeroflot qualifier and rating outsider Vladislav Kovalev. He beat Giri with Black and almost beat Kramnik with White in the last round. Need I say Kramnik blundered terribly in an equal position? Undefeated 4/7 and a shared second is an incredible result for Kovalev, but I don’t see him getting more elite-level invitations as a result of this success. Elite tournaments are not really a meritocracy, even though Spassky once said that chess is a meritocracy. Chess may be, but getting into those closed circles requires much more than just good play.

To finish, here’s that Kramnik blunder in the last round.

This year the traditional Dortmund tournament sees a few familiar faces and a couple of new ones.

The home player is of course Vladimir Kramnik. Having won the tournament 10 times, he’s a regular for “26th or 27th time” as even he himself couldn’t remember the exact number of times he’s played there. He is in search for an 11th win in Dortmund, but I doubt he’ll win it – Kramnik is an exciting player to watch, but he allows too many chances in his games and modern players have learned to take them.

Kramnik’s second in Berlin was Anish Giri. He will definitely want to win a supertournament for the first time since Reggio Emilia’s 2011. That’s definitely a long wait for somebody who is attempting to establish himself as a worthy World Championship candidate. He did show glimpses of his potential in Wijk this year as he only lost to Carlsen in the tie-break, but so far his Dortmund play leaves much to be desired. Here’s what he managed to lose to the Aeroflot qualifier and definitely the outsider here, Vladislav Kovalev.

The game shows that even world-class players are not immune to a loss against weaker opposition. The reason is that the “weaker opposition” isn’t weak at all and they are fully capable of taking advantage of the world-class player’s mistakes.

Nepomniachtchi came to Dortmund fresh from winning the strong Gideon Japhen Memorial in Jerusalem. In a double-round robin with a rapid time control that included Svidler, Gelfand, Ivanchuk, Meier and Anna Muzychuk he won with 6/10, a full point ahead of the rest. He won a smooth game against Nisipeanu in Round 3.

Leading the tournament is the best U20 player in the world, the Polish GM Duda. It’s interesting to see him win against Nisipeanu in one of the most drawing lines in the 3 Bb5+ line in the Sicilian.

Duda’s aggressive intentions were awarded in this game, but it is this spirit of trying to win a game with Black even against an openly draw-minded opponent that can bring the Polish player far. As for Nisipeanu, he’s clearly out of form in Dortmund and Kramnik can perhaps curse his bad luck that he had to play him in Round 1 while that still wasn’t visible.

The other two players, Meier and Wojtaszek (who again lost to Duda, after their duel in the Polish championship) still need to show something notable. At least Meier drew with Kramnik and Giri.

Dortmund is really a very relaxing tournament – only 7 rounds and 2 rest days. A chess-player’s paradise. Let’s see what the rest of the tournament has to offer.