Linares starts in three days
10 February 2010, 13.32 CET | By Peter Doggers | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
The second Grand Slam tournament of the year will officially be opened on Friday, February 12th. The first round of the Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez “Ciudad de Linares” starts 16:00 CET on Saturday the 13th. Topalov, Aronian, Gelfand, Gashimov, Grischuk and Vallejo play. Who do you think will win?
The 27th Linares tournament takes place February 12th-25th in Linares, Spain. As a result of the financial crisis, the event goes back to the (nowadays almost universal) formula of six players, double round-robin. Also in 2000 and 2001 there were only six players. In the years 2002-2005 the tournament had 7 players, and in 2006-2009 there were 8.
This year Veselin Topalov (2805), Levon Aronian (2781), Boris Gelfand (2761), Vugar Gashimov (2759), Alexander Grischuk (2736) and Francisco Vallejo Pons (2705) play. The rounds start at 16:00 CET. The opening is on Friday the 12th, the closing on Friday the 26th, and rest days are on the 17th and the 22nd. ChessVibes will bring on-the-spot coverage with on-site reports during the first half, and coverage by yours truly during the final week.
Veselin Topalov will be back behind the chess board after almost four months of absence. For the Bulgarian it will be the first tournament since Nanjing 2009, where he finished second on 5.5/10, 2.5 points behind sensational winner Magnus Carlsen. After that Topalov only played four games at the European Team Championship in Novi Sad, end October, where he scored 2.5/4. The big question will be whether the now world’s number 2 will be able to fight for first and at the same time save his biggest opening novelties for the upcoming match against Anand. His regular second Ivan Cheparinov is currently playing at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow, but Topalov is taking Leinier Dominguez, a strong theoretician himself, to Linares.
Last year Levon Aronian scored 6.5/14, which meant a shared 5th place in the standings with Radjabov and Wang Yue. However, he continued strongly by retaining his title at the Amber tournament and then winning his second FIDE Grand Prix in Nalchik, and with it the GP Series. Aronian’s last event was the World Team Championship in Bursa last month, where he scored 6/9. Before that, at the Tal Memorial, he scored 5/9.
Boris Gelfand is the only player older than 40 in Linares, but the Israeli grandmaster has proven many times already that experience can still beat youth. As the top seed, he won the FIDE World Cup in December in Khanty-Mansiysk, beating Ruslan Ponomariov in the final. This earned Gelfand a spot in the Linares tournament in fact, because already before the World Cup the organizers decided to invite the winner.
For Vugar Gashimov Linares will be the first super-GM tournament, although he has clearly shown already to be a world-class grandmaster, especially in the FIDE Grand Prix Series. As a result, Gashimov is currently the world’s number 7 player and the highest rated player in Azerbaijan (although in the live list Mamedyarov has surpassed him again).
Alexander Grischuk is defending his title in Linares. Last year he won the event on tiebreak, finishing first together with Vassily Ivanchuk on 8/14. (The Ukrainian’s SB was higher and he left the tournament undefeated, but Grischuk was declared winner due to having more wins.) Grischuk played well at the World Team Championship, where he scored 4.5/7 (and defeated Gashimov in a wild game). Before that he won the Superfinal of the Russian Championship with 6.5/9.
Local hero Francisco “Paco” Vallejo, another second of Topalov, didn’t have to travel too much. His last tournament was in Gibraltar, where he finished on an undefeated 7.5/10 and eventually lost to Adams in the play-off final. In the Bundesliga he scored two draws and three wins for Baden-Baden this season, but it remains to be seen how he will do against top 10 players.
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Root for Grischuk here and Topalov on April.
aronian for sure
Six players is very sad. Linares used to be by far the biggest tourney in the world. Corus was a distant second.
It is a shame indeed that only six players are going to be in Linares this year.
May I inquire:
How come Carlsen is not in this Tournament?
When was the last time Kramnik got invitation to this Tournament?
Perhaps even Carslen rests. No idea about Kramnik’s invitations but a six-player tourney is really a ripoff of the past glorious Linares.
The lineup looks like one which Toplov may win, if at least one of Aronian, Gelfand and Grischuk happens to be out of form – which is not so unlikely. I’d still put my bet on Aronian.
linares never been bigger then Corus but stronger some time.Corus is wimbledon of chess not Linares
I’m afraid Topalov will, just as Anand in Corus, take no risks at all. And this might result in a non-game almost every round. So the excitement will have to come from the other 2 games… I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid this will be a rather dull Linares….
@Afghan We all know you’re wrong. Here’s just one example of the many legendary Linares tourneys. “The field at Linares 1994 was one of the strongest ever, and Kasparov prior to the event commented that the winner could call himself “world champion of tournament chess”. He were to regret having said that. Karpov smashed the world elite to bits and pieces with an amazing score of 11/13 (+9 =4 -0) and a record performance rating of 2985, after having won his first 6 games and left Kasparov and Shirov 2.5 points behind. This was arguably the greatest achievement in the history of tournament chess.”
Comparing Linares with Corus is comparing apples and oranges, or maybe tapas (small bites) and pea soup. Corus is basically the only remaining private supertournament with a larger field and single round robin – only the FIDE GP tournaments have the same format with 14 players, Tal Memorial with 10 players is somewhere in between.
Linares became a smaller double round robin back in 1998! Such a format may be cheaper, and it is easier to strive for a higher category. This year they only went from 8 to 6 players, making it similar to MTel, Nanjing, Dortmund, Bazna and Biel.
About the Linares field: Carlsen was apparently invited but declined because his schedule would become too busy (and he already double-qualified for Shanghai/Bilbao). Next on his agenda is Amber, which hardly any top player ever declines … . Kramnik mentioned about half a year ago that he “might” play Linares – don’t know if he was too expensive or if the organizers didn’t want to have both him and Topalov (who lives in Spain). In the past: when Linares was Morelia-Linares he wasn’t interested because he – and others – don’t like the idea of intercontinental travel and jetlag in the middle of a major event. And last year he took a father’s break.
Anyway, if we accept the reduction to six players, who should be dropped in favor of Kramnik or Carlsen?
Vallejo – they want a local wildcard. BTW, while I don’t know about the current situation, Shirov was (understandably) mad at Rentero who played a key role in his non-match against Kasparov.
Grischuk – defending champion, need I write more?
Gelfand – established world top player
Gashimov – his invitation is overdue (and was made before his bad result at the World Team championship)
Topalov, Aronian – certainly no questions asked.
I wrote more than the six previous posters together, it takes more space to understand and explain than to criticize … .
In site of the high quality of the players and in spite of “Rentero’s rule”: if some gentlemen decide to take an extra rest-day…
I’m curious how many times there will be only one game (or none) on-line after a couple of hours…
In spite of…
@Britishfan first af all you have to know difrince between bigger and stronger then you will undrestand what I mean.Corus with 3groups + handrets of amatures should be bigger.2years ago I saw a group from New zealand were playing and people from all over the world coming tere thats what I mean bigger my friend Britishfan
what is the largest field linares has had?
LInares 1978-2009:
http://www.endgame.nl/linares.htm
honestly I think the most shameful thing is not inviting Ivanchuk who also finished tied with Grischuk last year. Grischuk is only “defending champ’ based on tie breaks.
@CAL|Daniel – Totally agree. Chucky should play instead of Gashimov!
Indeed. It’s a shame not to invite him anywhere, but that’s another story.