Last year CajaCanarias (Tenerife) won the Spanish Championship after a nail-biting finish, but this weekend Linex-Magic won back the national title. It was the third cup for the team from Mérida, and match winner was Fabiano Caruana, who scored the only victory in the final.

Photo courtesy of Linex-Magic

This weekend the playoffs of the Spanish Team Championship took place in Linares, the famous chess city located in the Andalusian province of Jaén, Spain.

The Spanish Team Championships are always decided among four teams in a play-off weekend, usually at the end of October or the start of November. Last year it took place in Montril (Granada) where CajaCanarias (Tenerife) emerged as the winners. This year the final four of the División de Honor Nacional de Ajedrez were Escuela International Kasparov-Marcote (Mondariz, Galicia), SCC de Sabadell (Catalunya), C.A. Linex-Magic (Mérida) and Kutxa-Gros (San Sebastián). The venue was the theatre in Linares, the same place of the super-tournament in February every year.

On Saturday, November 7th the semi-finals were played. E.I. Kasparov-Marcote crushed SCC Sabadell 5-1 despite two draws on the top boards (Gashimov and Vallejo having three hundred rating points more than their opponents!). C.A. Linex-Magic defeated Kutxa Gros 4-2 thanks to Shirov and Cheparinov, who beat Kasimdzhanov and Hamdouchi respectively. (Don't miss the great Botvinnik Semi-Slav game Kasim-Shirov!)

In the big final on Sunday, E.I. Kasparov-Marcote and C.A. Linex-Magic fought out a tough match which was eventually decided by just one game: Caruana's crushing victory against Alexander Graf. Shirov and Gashimov played an interesting Benoni on board 1 whick looked very scary for Black - allowing e5-e6, having to play the king to f7 and e8 and then back to g8 against Shirov and survive it is a mission impossible, except for world's number 6 Vugar Gashimov apparently!

The match for 3rd and 4th place was won convincingly by Kutxa Gros, who were much too strong for SCC Sabadell. It looks like this year only three teams were able to collect enough sponsor money to line up strong foreign grandmasters. But as one of the countries hit the most by the financial crisis, luckily Spain is still hanging on, relying on their enormous chess culture.

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We recognize the stage from the Linares tournament

The players in action in the theater

Vugar Gashimov, not playing the Tal Memorial but certainly playing

Rustam Kasimdzhanov from Uzbekistan, now with glasses...

...like Loek van Wely from The Netherlands

Ivan Cheparinov from Bulgaria

The top game Shirov-Gashimov, one of the most interesting draws this weekend

Fabiano Caruana played a very important role in this year's Championship

The winners with their third cup: los extremeños, Linex-Magix, from Mérida, Extremadura

Links:

• Spanish Chess Federation
• All games in PGN