PoPChess

Between vacation and the mountain of work that awaited my return, I just haven’t had time to cover Biel much. It looks like Morozevich has blown several wins along the way. But he came back to beat Ivanchuk yesterday to give young French GM Vachier-Lagrave clear first and the opportunity of a lifetime. This wasn’t the first Russo-Franco friendship gift of the tournament. Morozevich completely destroyed Vachier-Lagrave in the eighth round only to miss win after win and eventually even go on to lose the key game.

Kudos to the Frenchman for good defense, but he slipped on a banana peel and dodged a bullet. The simple 26.Rxf8+ Rxf8 27.Qxe5 was curtains. The endgame was bizarre, with two passed pawns vs a rook. It looks trivial, but looks can be deceiving. 56.b4! Bxf4 57.b5 is a little trickier than the game. But there’s still a “king zugzwang” in there eventually and when the white bishop moves so does the black g-pawn, allowing the black bishop to defend g7 and h8 as in the game. Then the black h-pawn is an easy win.

But you can’t call first place in a category 19 luck, especially if you’re undefeated and coming with one day’s break from a category 18. (Vachier-Lagrave had just played in San Sebastian.) Morozevich and Ivanchuk are a half-point behind with 5/9 and even Alekseev can hit the podium with a win. Gelfand and Caruana share the cellar on -2. Final round pairings: Alekseev-Vachier-Lagrave, Morozevich-Caruana, Gelfand-Ivanchuk. Live here at 1400 local, 8am EDT.