diagonal: After Poland won the Bronze medal at the 2017 World Team Chess Championship, and Radoslaw Wojtaszek took this year's Dortmund as clear first, another fine win for a Polish player: Bartel triumphed in the Master Tournament (Open) at Biel.
Bartel, a typical Elo 2600+ player (peak 2677 in 2012) but below regular invitations in closed international tournaments, has now some pretty nice and traditional Open chess tournament wins in his pocket: Aeroflot, Barcelona, Biel, or Isle of Man (among some others).
In 2007, he tied for 1st-6th with Vitali Golod, Zahar Efimenko, Yuri Yakovich, Michael Roiz and Mikhail Kobalia in the <16th Monarch Assurance Isle of Man> International open tournament, as first on tie-break in the last Isle of Man Open under the label of Monarch Assurance. IoM had a longer break afterwards and has been restarted then in 2014 as considerable stronger Open, it will see an even bigger line-up this year.
In 2008, Bartel won the <10th International Chess Open de Sants, Hostafrancs i La Bordeta in Barcelona> after speed tie-breaks from Pablo Lafuente, Diego Di Berardino and Josep Oms Pallisse after all scored 8/10 (A-Open, 322 players).
Note: the final standings on some websites were not complete; because of that, on many reports GM Lafuente was declared a winner by Bucholz, but for all prized places, blitz tie-breaks were to be played (2 games / 5 minutes, in case of draw Armageddon), and Bartel won Barcelona in the tie-break mini-matches.
In 2012, Bartel tied for 1st-3rd with Anton Korobov and Pavel Eljanov in the <11th Aeroflot Open at Moscow>, winning the prestigious event on tie-break.
In 2017, Bartel won the <Open at the Biel Chess Festival (50th and jubilee edition)>, on tie-break above Vladimir Baklan.
Kibitzing
