The 48th Biel/ Bienne International Chess Festival is scheduled to take place from July 18-31, 2015, in Biel/ Bienne, a town in Switzerland.
The highlight of the event is the 19th Category GM tournament with an average of 2720 Elo.
Michael Adams, ENG (2740), Radoslaw Wojtaszek, POL (2733), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, FRA (2731), David Navara, CZE (2724), Pavel Eljanov, UKR (2723) and Richard Rapport, HUN (2671) will compete in a double round-robin system (10 rounds) with tempo of play 100’/40 + 50’/20 + 15’ + 30”.
Draw offers are forbidden for the first 40 moves and If two (or more) players share first place, the winner will be determined according to the results of a tiebreak played on July 31st (in the morning).
MVL has the chance to break two records with one tournament victory. In case he finishes first, he will be the only player to win Biel GM Tournament four times, and the first one to lift the trophy in three consecutive years.
Winners of the GM tournament so far are: Anthony Miles (1977, 1983), Viktor Kortchnoi (1979, 2001), Yehuda Grünfeld (1980), Eric Lobron (1981, 1986), Vlastimil Hort (1981, 1984), John Nunn (1982, 1983), Florin Gheorghiu (1982), Robert Hübner (1984), Lev Polugajevski (1986), Boris Gulko (1987, 1989), Ivan Sokolov (1988), Vassily Ivanchuk (1989), Anatoly Karpov (1990, 1992, 1996), Alexej Shirov (1991), Viktor Gavrikov (1994), Alexej Dreev (1995), Viswanathan Anand (1997), Mladen Palac (1998), Jeroen Piket (1999), Peter Svidler (2000), Ilya Smirin (2002), Alexander Morozevich (2003, 2004, 2006), Boris Gelfand (2005), Andrei Volokitin (2005), Magnus Carlsen (2007, 2011), Evgeny Alekseev (2008), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2009, 2013, 2014), Fabiano Caruana (2010), Wang Hao (2012).
Other tournaments and activities:
• Master tournament – 11-round Swiss open for players > Elo 2000; first prize is CHF 7,000
• Main tournament – 9-round Swiss open for players < Elo 2051; first prize is CHF 1,500
• Rapid tournament – 9-round Swiss rapid open with time control 15’ + 5”and first prize of CHF 1,500
• Blitz tournament – 13-round Blitz tournament with time control 3’ + 2” and first prize in the amount of CHF 1,000
• Chess960 Championship – 7-round Swiss tournament played according to the Chess960 rules
• Youth tournament – 7-round Swiss tournament in three categories (U18, U13, U10), sponsored by the Foundation Vinetum
• Simultaneous exhibition – A Grandmaster from the GM tournament will deliver a simultaneous exhibition in the center of Biel
• Chess-tennis tournament, supported by Tenniscenter Scheuren – each team consists of 2 players
• Tournament for doctors – 5-round Swiss tournament only for doctors; tempo of play is 15’ + 5”
• Simultaneous for doctors – Simultaneous exhibition delivered by a GM to doctors
• Chessbase seminar by Mr. Pascal Simon (Germany)