Biel: Carlsen loses to Alekseev, Dominguez in the lead

From the start it was clear that Magnus Carlsen would defend his title in Biel - but how big would his win be this time, that was the question. However, after pressing too hard against Alekseev, it’s now Leinier Dominguez who leads the tournament with three rounds to go.

Photo © http://www.bielchessfestival.ch/

After a holiday in Ireland that was as luckless as Pelletier is performing in Biel at the moment, your editor-in-chief has returned to the chess world. I had a great time walking 16 km along the northern Irish coast up to the Giant’s Causeway, drinking the tourist’s share (and more) of the unavoidable pints of Guinness and Kilkenny, and was moved by learning more about the Troubles and Bloody Sunday. It’s been a great two weeks, among very friendly Irish people, and with more sunshine than we expected.

Unfortunately, after one week I lost my photo camera and two days before the end of my trip (at least the timing was OK), at the Gap of Dunloe I fell from a mountainbike and hurt my left ancle. Diagnosed torn ligaments, I’m now walking on crutches for the first time in my life.

Perfect injury for a chess player / writer, of course. Who doesn’t remember Miles’ shared victory at Tilburg 1985, which he played in a horizontal position because of back problems? A soccer player would have much more reason to complain than I do.

And so I’ve spent many hours behind the computer already, catching up with the chess news. A quick round-up: Granda Zuniga won the Benasque Open, Alan Tate is the new Scottish Champion, Baburin and Greenfeld ended shared first at the Irish Ch (which I’ve actually visited myself one day), Pal Benko turned 80, IMs Hammer and Elsness will have to play a tiebreak to decide on the Carlsen-less Norwegian Championship, the legendary Bent Larsen played chess (he lost a minimatch 1½-2½ to Morovic), IM Pruijssers won the Leiden Chess Tournament after a tie with GM Van den Doel, 16-year-old Peruvian IM Cordova wins the Alajuela Open in Costa Rica ahead of GMs such as Mikhalevski and Tiviakov, Gasanov wins the (as always huge) Czech Open, a 600-year old chess piece was found in Russia and Tiviakov won the Politiken Cup on tiebreak (and did a photo report for Chessbase).

Of course I don’t really have to mention what my co-editors have been writing about - the few moments I surfed the web in Ireland, it was great to see they were keeping you up to date with the major events, such as Poykovsky and Biel, and besides, some articles on Lewis Carroll, Chessbase & Rybka and chess & math that led to interesting discussions that haven’t finished yet, or so it seems.

But let’s move on to Biel, where things were going according to plan for 17-year-old Magnus Carlsen, who seemed to be on his way to take over the (virtual) number one spot in the world rankings. However, yesterday the young Norwegian lost his first game since April 24th (when Mamedyarov won a fine game against him at the Grand Prix tournament in Baku), staying unbeaten for 34 games in a row (including his rapid match against Leko, that is). Carlsen pressed too hard against Evgeny Alekseev and having miscalculated, he found himself in a lost ending. Dominguez is leading by half a point, after defeating Pelletier (now on 0.5/7…) and Bacrot beat Onischuk with Black.

Biel 2008 Round 7 Standings

Links:

• Official website
• Games in PGN