The 43rd Biel festival has begun

The traditional Biel festival takes place from the 17th to the 30th of July and includes a whole range of different tournaments. Youth is the order of the day in the featured event with all twelve players rated over 2600 and aged between 16 and 22 years old.
Wesley So and Maxim Rodshtein started with wins, whereas the favourite Vachier-Lagrave had to settle for a draw.

Tournaments like this 'young masters' edition should give the chess world an idea of who will be the world-beaters of tomorrow.

Wesley So, playing black, outplayed David Howell in the Exchange variation of the Caro-Kann. An exchange sacrifice led to him breaking through on the queenside.

Maxim Rodshtein played a complicated line of the Catalan against Negi and the fight for the initiative ensued, with both sides sacrificing a pawn at different moments for play. At the end Negi was faced with the loss of a piece after getting his pieces tangled.

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Of course these players have already made a name for themselves at junior level and Tomashevsky went even further becoming European champion. Top seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave from Paris is just outside the World's top twenty.

Here are the players in rating order.

Seed	Name	Rating	Country	World ranking	Age
1	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	FRA	2723	22	19
2	Evgeny Tomashevsky	RUS	2708	33	22
3	Fabiano Caruana	ITA	2697	39	17
4	Wesley So	PHI	2674	60	16
5	Anish Giri	NED	2672	63	16
6	Dmitry Andreikin	RUS	2650	88	20
7	Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son	VIE	2617	165	20
8	David Howell	ENG	2616	169	19
9	Parimarjan Negi	IND	2615	171	17
10	Maxim Rodshtein	ISR	2609	191	21

The first round results were as follows.

Name	Country	Rating	Result	Name	Country	Rating	Number of moves
Anish Giri	NED	2672	0.5-0.5	Evgeny Tomashevsky	RUS	2708	28
Dmitry Andreikin	RUS	2650	0.5-0.5	Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son	VIE	2617	28
David Howell	ENG	2616	0-1	Wesley So	PHI	2674	32
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	FRA	2723	0.5-0.5	Fabiano Caruana	ITA	2697	44
Maxim Rodshtein	ISR	2609	1-0	Parimarjan Negi	IND	2615	30

So the leader board is as follows.

Seed	Name	Country	Rating	Points
1st-2nd	Wesley So	PHI	2674	1
1st-2nd	Maxim Rodshtein	ISR	2609	1
3rd-8th	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	FRA	2723	0.5
3rd-8th	Evgeny Tomashevsky	RUS	2708	0.5
3rd-8th	Fabiano Caruana	ITA	2697	0.5
3rd-8th	Anish Giri	NED	2672	0.5
3rd-8th	Dmitry Andreikin	RUS	2650	0.5
3rd-8th	Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son	VIE	2617	0.5
9th-10th	David Howell	ENG	2616	0
9rd-10th	Parimarjan Negi	IND	2615	0

For more information see the Official site