Magnus Carlsen Wins Annual Biel Chess Tournament

Magnus Carlsen, a young chess prodigy, won the extremely tough tournament at Biel after tie-breakers against Alexander Onischuk. After a great start with a performance rating of nearly 3000, he lost in rounds seven and eight.In order to bounce back to first, he had to win the last round and he was paired with an old rival: Radjabov.

Teimour Radjabov, the top seed, had not been playing as well as his rating would suggest. However, in the last half of the tournament, he came back and won a number of games in order to take the lead. In order to win the tournament, he had to win the last game (he decided to draw the eighth game early, a surprise move for everyone since he was white). In round nine, he faced Carlsen; he had never lost to Carlsen before but it looked like this time would be different.

Radjabov tried to defend his position, but Carlsen took a strong initiative and with a rook sacrifice, won the game, giving him a score of 5.5 points. This did not mean Carlsen had won the tournament; Carlsen would tie with Onischuk if Onischuk did not lose this game, and he did not. He drew his final game with Alexander Motylev and also finished with 5.5 points.

The tie-breakers were quickly started with Onischuk against Carlsen. After four games in rapid chess and all games tied, an armageddon game was played. This type of rapid chess had the format of black with only four minutes while white had five; however, if a draw was achieved, black would be counted as the winner. Even with the draw-odds as black, Carlsen showed his ability in calculations with a beautiful queen sacrifice and won the game.

Carlsen later told the press that this was the most difficult tournament he has faced so far and was very happy that he had won it. For a 16-year old, this is truly impressive. I don't think this is the last time we see Carlsen achieve this kind of victory; expect to see him at the World Champions soon!

A special recognition to Yannick Pelletier, the lowest rated player who finished with five points and achieved third place. With a rating of 2591, he defeated and drew against many who were about 100 points higher than he was, truly amazing at the grandmaster level.

Overall, it was a great tournament with almost everyone performing about where they should have (except Pelletier!); seeing Carlsen win, however, was not unexpected because he had produced a series of strong tournament results previously.

Final Standings: Carlsen, Onischuk, Pelletier, Polgar, Grischuk, Radjabov, Bu Xiangzhi, Van Wely, Motylev, Avruk.