After 9 grueling rounds, GM Onischuk and GM Carlsen tied for first. A playoff was held and the first 2 games were drawn. The players had to go to another two games and they were also drawn. Magnus finally won the Armageddon game in spite of a valiant effort by Alex.
Congratulations to both for a fine tournament!
Tie-Break
1st game (rapid)
Alexander Onischuk – Magnus Carlsen ½ – ½
2nd game (rapid)
Magnus Carlsen – Alexander Onischuk ½ – ½
3rd game (blitz)
Alexander Onischuk – Magnus Carlsen ½ – ½
4th game (blitz)
Magnus Carlsen – Alexander Onischuk ½ – ½
5th game (blitz)
Alexander Onischuk – Magnus Carlsen 0 – 1
Official website: http://www.bielchessfestival.ch/cms/
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
WOW!!!!! I’m so happy Magnus did make it to win this very strong tournament!
A few rounds ago it seemed he was getting tired, but he bounced back and won in amazing style!!!! 🙂
Way to go Magnus!!!! We all love you and wish you all the luck to become World Champion one day!!!!
CONGRATULATIONS WINNING BIEL !!!!!!!
good job!
come on Karjakin, get up!
Race with Carlsen…
Karjakin? Sergey? Hellooo? Where are you?
No need for all this shouting and !!s. ‘Respect’ to both Carlsen and Onischuk, and to J Polgar close behind.
I am a carlsen fan but I wanted to see Onischuk win. He played fantastic. I feel the final result was not dependent on the chess as on the flip of the coin.
Magnus won the coin flip and of course took black. With 4 minutes to 5 minutes not much time to think. Magnus stuck Onischuk at least three times with draw offers on the board. Poor Onischuk was forced with almost no time to come up with creative ways to try to keep the game going since to exchange queens would be to basically accept the game as a draw and black then gets a win.
So the coin flip gave Onischuk an unacceptable position. I would much rather they continue with pairs of games until one side wins or just have dual champions. That happens all the time.
Anyway as far as I am concerned Onischuk played just as good as Magnus and deserved to share first place.
Chess simply has to come up with a more fair way to decide a match.
The playoff games were fantastically exciting and great entertainment. Chess is great when you set it up correctly.
Well done Susan. Your site reported everything even before Chessbase. Obviously this is the place for Chess News these days.
Keep up the good work. Magnus….man..wonder how far this kid will go.
I am happy for Magnus and also our own Onishuck who had a great result!
Susan,
I cannot find the game from Round 9 between Magnus and Radjabov.
Can you help us by posting this game?
Thanks.
P.S. I do see the 5th playoff game too, but not the first four playoff games.
Excellent job GM Onishuck! America is proud of you! Keep up the good work….and many thanks to Susan for such wonderful coverage of this exciting chess event.
“Seneca”