The Biel International Chess Festival is planning a record year for the end of the health crisis. The event, uninterrupted for 55 years, will take place this year from July 10 to 24 at the Palais des Congrès. The organizers presented Tuesday a raised plate and a program for all levels. They dedicate this 55th edition to PeBu (Peter Burri), “unwavering pillar of the festival”, who died suddenly last March. Peter Burri served as technical director of the event from 1998 to 2017.
A record of events
The organizers are delighted with this post-Covid19 edition. For Paul Kohler, secretary general of the festival and director of the Grand Masters Triathlon (GMT), estimates that there will be plenty with a record number of events: “an exceptional range of tournaments, opportunities to play chess at different levels and in different styles”, and the quality with “a very large and very open Grandmasters tournament and a Masters tournament which will have 16 players at more than 2600 Elo points (the comparative evaluation system of the level of play of the players chess).
The GMT, the festival’s flagship event, therefore promises to be tough, with players very close to the world rankings (Gata Kamsky, Arkadij Naiditsch, Quang Liem Le, Saleh Salem, Andrey Esipenko, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Vincent Keymer and Dommaraju Gukesh). Twenty other events are set up as an ACCENTUS quadriathlon for women, the finals of the Swiss junior championships, the Masters Tournament, blitz and rapid tournament, as well as for the first time: an intergenerational tournament – Generation Chess – and a “Brain Battle Chess vs. Poker” where four chess players will face four players from the Swiss national poker team with cards and pawns.
” We are one nation “
Chess, united nation. The organizers of the Biel International Chess Festival do not want to prevent anyone from taking part in their tournament because of their nationality. The international context and the war in Ukraine as a backdrop, they wanted to recall on Tuesday the motto since 1924 of the International Chess Federation: “Gens una sumus”, or “we are one people, one nation”. A phrase explained by FIDE President Alexander Rueb after World War II: “No friend of chess should forget that we are one nation and that chess should become a powerful instrument for international understanding and the peace “. /comm-lbe