Biel Chess Festivel

The annual Biel Chess Festival began the other day, and already there has been plenty of entertaining chess. Normally I am not a fan of the 6 player double round robin (as it leads to a lot of shadow boxing), but the organisers have invited a fairly combative group of players. No one in the top 15, but a close grouping of players ranked 17 to 31 (plus 19 year old Richard Rapport). As a result it is less of a battle between the players plus seconds, and more of a battle between clashing ideas.
The feature game from round 2 was the Rapport v Adams game. Rapport played a Kings Gambit (becoming a more frequent visitor at the top these days), while Adams responded with a defence that was popular in the 1970's but one I don't see so much these days. In a game that would make "structural purists" gasp in horror, Rapport looked to be winning, until Adams found a nice counter attack to force a draw.
Alongside the GM event is a Masters tournament, which contains plenty of GM's as well. Of interest (at least to me) are two non GM competitors, IM John-Paul Wallace (AUS), and FM Sunil Weeramantry, who is GM Hikaru Nakamura's step father.


Rapport,R (2671) - Adams,Mi (2740) [C36]
48th Biel GM 2015 Biel SUI (2), 21.07.2015