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Grischuk wins Linares 2009 on tiebreak

8 March 2009, 3.00 CET | Last modified: 17:57 | By Peter Doggers  | Filed under: Reports | Tags:

Linares R14Especially after such a wonderful penultimate round it was a bit of an anticlimax: all games in round 14 of Linares ended in a draw, and so Grischuk and Ivanchuk finished shared first. The Ukrainian’s SB was higher and he left the tournament undefeated, but Grischuk was declared winner due to having more wins.

Photo: Macauley Peterson

From February 18 till March 8 the 26th Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez Ciudad de Linares took place. There was no appearance fee for the players this time; the prize fund was 314,000 EUR. Grischuk and Ivanchuk shared the first and second prizes of 100,000 EUR + 75,000 EUR / 2 = 87,500 EUR. Carlsen earned 50,000 EUR.

Round 14
There’s not much to say about the last round. All eight players played quite cautiously and this resulted in four games with lots of manoeuvering, but nothing spectacular came on the boards. Both leaders Grischuk and Ivanchuk came under pressure with the black pieces, but both held their own.

Linares R14And so Grischuk, who had been in the lead for more than half of the tournament, was declared winner on the number of wins (three, against two for Ivanchuk), since the first tiebreak rule (head-to-head) didn’t work, with two draws between the two. After the game Grischuk said that he considered his game with White against Ivanchuk his best effort, despite the fact that it ended in a draw.

After a bad tournament in Wijk aan Zee, where he had other things to worry about (the drug test story), Vassily Ivanchuk showed his form of 2008 again, and didn’t lose a single game (two wins and twelve draws – a 2802 perfomance). His comment on that: “I was lucky.” Grischuk scored the highest performance: 2808. Carlsen, who finished clear third with a plus one score, was brilliant in a few games, but also had problems with his concentration in others, which kept him from playing for first place (”that’s why I didn’t win the tournament this year”, he said himself).

World champion Anand started with a beautiful win against Radjabov, but after that he couldn’t continue on the same level. He scored 50% which was a performance 40 points below his rating. Wang Yue and Dominguez scored almost exactly their expected results, while Aronian and Radjabov disappointed slightly, finishing on minus one.

And so the first three participants of the Bilbao Grand Slam Final, which will be held later this year, are known: Veselin Topalov (Nanjing), Sergey Karjakin (Wijk aan Zee) and Alexander Grischuk (Linares).

After Corus, Topalov-Kamsky and Linares, a busy period full of top-level chess has come to an end. But already in one week the world’s best players meet again, at their traditional gig in March: the Amber tournament. With Anand, Aronian, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Kamsky, Karjakin, Kramnik, Leko, Morozevich, Radjabov, Topalov and Wang Yue it will be the strongest edition ever. More info here.

Linares 2009 | Final Standings

        1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8    
1 Ivanchuk,V 2779 +23 ** ½½ ½½ ½½ ½½ ½½ 11 ½½ 8.0/14 54.50
2 Grischuk,A 2733 +75 ½½ ** ½0 ½½ 1½ 1½ 1½ ½½ 8.0/14 54.00
3 Carlsen,M 2776 +1 ½½ ½1 ** 1½ ½0 ½½ ½0 ½1 7.5/14  
4 Anand,V 2791 -40 ½½ ½½ 0½ ** 1½ 1½ 0½ ½½ 7.0/14  
5 Wang Yue 2739 -5 ½½ 0½ ½1 0½ ** ½½ ½½ ½½ 6.5/14 45.75
6 Radjabov,T 2761 -30 ½½ 0½ ½½ 0½ ½½ ** ½1 ½½ 6.5/14 45.25
7 Aronian,L 2750 -18 00 0½ ½1 1½ ½½ ½0 ** 1½ 6.5/14 44.50
8 Dominguez Perez,L 2717 -5 ½½ ½½ ½0 ½½ ½½ ½½ 0½ ** 6.0/14  


Linares 2009 | Schedule & results

Thursday, February 19th   Friday, February 20th
Round 1
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST		   Round 2
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST
Anand-Radjabov 1-0   Radjabov-Ivanchuk ¬?-¬?
Aronian-Carlsen ¬?-¬?   Grischuk-Wang Yue 1-0
Dominguez-Grischuk ¬?-¬?   Carlsen-Dominguez ¬?-¬?
Wang Yue-Ivanchuk ¬?-¬?   Anand-Aronian 0-1
     
Saturday, February 21st   Sunday, February 22nd
Round 3
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST		   Round 4
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST
Aronian-Radjabov ¬?-¬?   Radjabov-Grischuk 0-1
Dominguez-Anand ¬?-¬?   Carlsen-Ivanchuk ¬?-¬?
Wang Yue-Carlsen ¬?-¬?   Anand-Wang Yue 1-0
Ivanchuk-Grischuk ¬?-¬?   Aronian-Dominguez 1-0
     
Monday, February 23rd   Tuesday, February 24th
    Round 5
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST
    Dominguez-Radjabov ¬?-¬?
Rest day   Wang Yue-Aronian ¬?-¬?
    Ivanchuk-Anand ¬?-¬?
    Grischuk-Carlsen ¬?-¬?
     
Wednesday, February 25th   Thursday, February 26th
Round 6
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST		   Round 7
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST
Wang Yue-Radjabov ¬?-¬?   Radjabov-Carlsen ¬?-¬?
Ivanchuk-Dominguez ¬?-¬?   Anand-Grischuk ¬?-¬?
Grischuk-Aronian 1-0   Aronian-Ivanchuk 0-1
Carlsen-Anand 1-0   Dominguez-Wang Yue ¬?-¬?
     
     
Friday, February 27th   Saturday, February 28th
    Round 8
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST
    Radjabov-Anand ¬?-¬?
Rest day   Carlsen-Aronian 0-1
    Grischuk-Dominguez ¬?-¬?
    Ivanchuk-Wang Yue ¬?-¬?
     
Sunday, March 1st   Monday, March 2nd
Round 9
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST		   Round 10
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST
Ivanchuk-Radjabov ¬?-¬?   Radjabov-Aronian 1-0
Wang Yue-Grischuk ¬?-¬?   Anand-Dominguez ¬?-¬?
Dominguez-Carlsen 0-1   Carlsen-Wang Yue 0-1
Aronian-Anand ¬?-¬?   Grischuk-Ivanchuk ¬?-¬?
     
Tuesday, March 3rd   Wednesday, March 4th
Round 11
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST		    
Grischuk-Radjabov ¬?-¬?    
Ivanchuk-Carlsen ¬?-¬?   Rest day
Wang Yue-Anand ¬?-¬?    
Dominguez-Aronian ¬?-¬?    
     
Thursday, March 5th   Friday, March 6th
Round 12
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST		   Round 13
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST
Radjabov-Dominguez ¬?-¬?   Carlsen-Radjabov ¬?-¬?
Aronian-Wang Yue ¬?-¬?   Grischuk-Anand ¬?-¬?
Anand-Ivanchuk ¬?-¬?   Ivanchuk-Aronian 1-0
Carlsen-Grischuk 1-0   Wang Yue-Dominguez ¬?-¬?
     
Saturday, March 7th   Sunday, March 8th
Round 14
16:00 CET / 10:00 EST		    
Radjabov-Wang Yue ¬?-¬?    
Dominguez-Ivanchuk ¬?-¬?   Closing
Aronian-Grischuk ¬?-¬?    
Anand-Carlsen ¬?-¬?    


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23 Responses to “Grischuk wins Linares 2009 on tiebreak”

  1. CAL|Daniel on March 8th, 2009 06:23

    your article is inaccurrate. Ivanchuk did not have a better tiebreak hence why he did not win on tiebreaks.

  2. Popuscu [Bulgaria] on March 8th, 2009 09:29

    To Danial
    Alexander Grischuk has won the event on the Linares tiebreak system, which awards victory to the player who has more wins (Ivanchuk would have won it on traditional tiebreak points, as shown in the table above). Also note that Teimour Radjabov is fifth in the official table, not sixth as in our table, which is automatically generated by ChessBase. Here are the official final standings:

    1. Grischuk, Alexander
    2. Ivanchuk, Vassily
    3. Carlsen, Magnus
    4. Anand, Viswanathan
    5. Radjabov, Teimour
    6. Wang Yue
    7. Aronian, Levon
    8. Dominguez Perez, Leinier

    See the official web site fro more details.

  3. Peter Doggers on March 8th, 2009 10:19

    Stricktly speaking CAL|Daniel was right, so I changed the sentence in the first paragraph a bit.

  4. ebutaljib on March 8th, 2009 10:22

    Here is the correct crosstable:

    http://www.geocities.com/pgnviewer/2009_Linares.png

  5. CAL|Daniel on March 8th, 2009 17:54

    much better Peter! :)

  6. RajeshV on March 8th, 2009 23:30

    Congrats to Grischuk on a nice “big tournament” win! If Iam not mistaken this is his first win in a high category tournament!! Carlsen, if he had not blown up his win against Radja, would’ve won this tournament on the same Linares rule, I suppose. Better luck next time, Magnus!!

  7. guitarspider on March 8th, 2009 23:38

    Congrats to Grischuck for his tournament win. Awesome to see him win big tournaments.

  8. Aljechins Cat on March 9th, 2009 01:02

    I really wonder why Grischuks victory win does only earn this few words above. As the tournament winner he gets significantly less space than other players and no congrats at all (?).

    To me, he won this tournament based on great defensive abilities and well-deserved. I appreciate his fresh mix of openings (e.g. KI vs Anand and Aronian, French Winawer against Lenier, a -very funny- QGA vs Wang). He also showed no fear to use the sharp Scheveningen (where “the better player wins”) giving Carlsen the opportunity to play one of the most interesting games of the tournament. With more players of that approach there could be less mono opening play on top-level (Petrov, Marshall and Slav-groan). Funny to see Aronian blundering a pawn (versus Radjabov) at the same stage where he usually still blitzes his preparation..

  9. CAL|Daniel on March 9th, 2009 01:55

    Slav is no groan. Slav is one of the most complex and interesting openings there is.

  10. Aljechins Cat on March 9th, 2009 02:21

    @CAL|Daniel

    The point is not whether the Slav (the Marshall) is interesting or not (they are), but that top seeds are using the same openings over and over again. Natural but a little bit one-sided, no risk-no fun.

  11. CAL|Daniel on March 9th, 2009 05:09

    it won’t let me post not fair!

  12. CAL|Daniel on March 9th, 2009 05:10

    there is alot of risk in the slav/semislav… someone hasn’t been paying much attention to top level chess if you’ve missed these games…

    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1531948
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1531285
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1531202
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535915
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535829
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1532035
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1531136
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1536446
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1536036
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1536003
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535973
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1532046
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1531090
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1530203
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1531173
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535930
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535792
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535846
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535743
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535836
    http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1535970

    The slav defense is one of blacks best tries to win against 1. d4 besides the KID (which usually leaves very little drawing chances unlike the slav) or its sister semislav. Just because you don’t like this opening is no reason to make blatent untrue statements about it. I wish it was played even more often than it is.
    Games ranging from Corus to Linares to Aeroflot

  13. CAL|Daniel on March 9th, 2009 05:10

    why will it let me post this garbage type response but not my real post?

  14. CAL|Daniel on March 9th, 2009 05:12

    OKAY because site has errors in it I couldn’t link you to the 21 decisive slav games from Corus, Linares and Aeroflot. Needless to say if you missed those games then you aren’t paying attention to top level chess anyways. There is alot of risk in the slav/semislav… someone hasn’t been paying much attention to top level chess if you’ve missed these games…

    The slav defense is one of blacks best tries to win against 1. d4 besides the KID (which usually leaves very little drawing chances unlike the slav) or its sister semislav. Just because you don’t like this opening is no reason to make blatent untrue statements about it. I wish it was played even more often than it is.

  15. Peter Doggers on March 9th, 2009 08:58

    ‘because the site has errors’ – it would be a pretty bad spam filter if a post containing 21 links would pass it, wouldn’t it? ;-)

  16. CAL|Daniel on March 9th, 2009 18:43

    my apologies peter. you can delete my snotty posts if you want.

  17. Goto on March 10th, 2009 03:35

    I am very very happy to see Grischuk won this big event. Once Kasparov commented on young Grischuk’s potential, but there were times I wonder if the promise was ever going to be fulfilled, given the story about him deep into poker… No offense to other wonderful players, but it is always nice to see a new face on top table, expressing full potential. I sincerely hope that he will keep up a good work and show us more wonderful games!

  18. patj on March 10th, 2009 13:32

    does grischuk ever smile?

  19. Arne Moll on March 10th, 2009 13:53

    @patj, it took some effort, but here’s the answer to your question:

    http://www.bielchessfestival.ch/cms/images/stories/2007/pictures/gmt_players/new/Grischuk%20Portrait%203.JPG

  20. Frits Fritschy on March 10th, 2009 16:09

    Grischuk may sometimes smile, as the picture shows, but does he ever sleep…?

  21. Arne Moll on March 10th, 2009 16:17

    He does, Frits, but not in the usual places:

    http://www.chessbase.com/news/2005/wijk/grischuk02.jpg

    ;-)

  22. Rick on March 13th, 2009 18:10

    Linares is still the best tournament around. Pity that we have to wait for another year.

  23. Aljechins Cat on March 14th, 2009 15:42

    @CAL Daniel:

    Make a try to understand what I wrote

    I wrote:
    “The point is … but that top seeds are using the same openings over and over again.”

    You wrote:
    “Just because you don‚Äôt like this opening is no reason to make blatent untrue statements about it.”

    Where is a statement about about any opening in my comment? Nowhere. Obviously the two threads don¬¥t match at all. Secondly, a posting expressing a personal opinion is by definition neither “true” or “untrue”.Only facts are true or not.

    Instead of copy-and-pasting your fingers off, I ask you to come down, think and stop offending other people.

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!





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