Biel Young Masters Chess: Caruana wins title after tie-break showdown

Biel Young Masters 2010 champion GM Fabiano Caruana

Hello Everyone!

The young Italian Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana has won the 2010 Biel Young Masters Chess Tournament. It was a nice birthday gift for himself as he celebrated his becoming 18 years old a day after the tie-break win on Thursday. You can check the official website for videos and swell photos.

Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (the best player according to Sonneborn-Berger points) was qualified for the final. Fabiano Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave played a semi-final of two blitz games (5 mins. + 2 sec. increment per move). Caruana won the first, Vachier-Lagrave, both taking advantage of the white pieces. In the Armageddon game the French GM had to win with the white pieces.

In the first game of the rapid chess final (10 mins. + 10 sec. increment per move) the Vietnamese GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son gained a considerable advantage with the black pieces against Fabiano Caruana and must have been winning around move 60. But he blew it at move 62 (...b2) and the game was soon drawn. In the second game Caruana picked up a pawn and was able to win the ensuing knight + pawns ending quite convincingly.

Here is a list of previous winners for statistics sake.

Past winners

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1977 Anthony Miles (ENG)

1979 Viktor Kortchnoi (SUI)

1980 Yehuda Grünfeld (ISR)

1981 Eric Lobron (GER); Vlastimil Hort (TCH)

1982 John Nunn (ENG); Florin Gheorghiu (ROM)

1983 Anthony Miles (ENG); John Nunn (ENG)

1984 Vlastimil Hort (TCH); Robert Hübner (GER)

1986 Lev Polugajevski (URS); Eric Lobron (GER)

1987 Boris Gulko (USA)

1988 Ivan Sokolov (YUG); Boris Gulko (USA)

1989 Vassily Ivantschuk (URS)

1990 Anatoly Karpov (URS)

1991 Alexej Shirov (LAT)

1992 Anatoly Karpov (RUS)

1994 Viktor Gavrikov (SUI)

1995 Alexej Dreev (RUS)

1996 Anatoly Karpov (RUS)

1997 Viswanathan Anand (IND)

1998 Mladen Palac (CRO)

1999 Jeroen Piket (NED)

2000 Peter Svidler (RUS)

2001 Viktor Kortchnoi (SUI)

2002 Ilya Smirin (ISR)

2003 Alexander Morozevich (RUS)

2004 Alexander Morozevich (RUS)

2005 Boris Gelfand (ISR); Andrei Volokitin (UKR)

2006 Alexander Morozevich (RUS)

2007 Magnus Carlsen (NOR)

2008 Evgeny Alekseev (RUS)

2009 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA)

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com