The Biel International Chess Festival is one of European chess’s most enduring annual events — founded in 1968 and run every summer since, except 2020. The 59th edition runs from 11 to 24 July 2026 at the Congress Centre in Biel/Bienne, on the lake at the German-French linguistic border. Three headline events run in parallel: the Grand Masters Triathlon (eight invited players), the Masters Open Swiss, and the Amateur Open.
The Triathlon format
The Grand Masters Triathlon (GMT) is Biel’s signature format: eight invited players, three sub-events (classical round-robin, rapid round-robin, blitz round-robin), combined scoring across all three. Classical wins are worth 4 points, rapid wins 2, blitz wins 1. The format rewards generalists who play all three time controls well — and tends to produce different winners year to year depending on which speed format dominates the standings tiebreak.
The Masters Open
The Masters Open is a 9-round Swiss running over 11 days. Roughly 200 entries including a sizable IM/GM contingent. The winner traditionally takes around CHF 15,000 plus prize-stratum incentives for under-2400 and under-2200 sections.
History
The Biel festival is one of the original European chess summer festivals along with Hastings (which began earlier but is now smaller in scale). The honour roll of GMT/triathlon winners over the decades includes Magnus Carlsen (multiple times), Wei Yi, Alireza Firouzja, and most of the European elite of the past forty years. The festival continues to operate as a non-profit and is supported by the city of Biel, the canton of Bern, and a longstanding sponsorship from the watchmaking firm Audemars Piguet.