This tournament is breathtaking!!!

They are too evenly matched. Organizers should add players like Morozevich and Shirov. Maybe they should also add some sacrificial players so that there is a win in every round. Who is your favorite weaker super GM player? I like Van Wely, no disrespect. Great guy.

I miss Carlsen and Kramnik...

My favorite "weak" Super GM player is GM Nikita Vitiugov. Some of his wins are astounding. It's very entertaining to play over his games. Uncompromising chess!

A tournament with Morozevich, Shirov and Nisipeanu would be cool :)

This is perhaps the least interesting "super" tournament for a long time.

Short played pretty creatively at Corus even against the best - save a spot for him

I do understand the financial concerns but this Linares is really boring with so few people. After London classics and Corus this year the expectations were high, so as the disappointment now...

Strange that Topalov has had 3 blacks and only one white after 4 rounds. I did not check, but if everybody has played 4 games, it should be possible that everybody played 2+2? Or am I missing something?

Until now it's more like the Roland Garros of chess. Play at Wimbledon is much faster than what is presented here...

Hmmm - does this mean that world champ's, with only two players, are bound to be really, really boring? :-)

The chess conundrum: the perfect game is a draw, but we want mistakes.

With due respect to this astouding players, this Linares is really boring : compared to what can be presented to chess fans. I guess there are enough strong GM to create a colorful event, even with few participants.

But here :

Topalov, who has his WCC match after
Vallejo, who used to be Topalov's second
Aronian, with no real pressure, who intends to observe others players, play wth opportunity but with no real risks, waiting for the next candidate cycle where he will be real contender - in short, he has less interest in winning this tournament than take a little time of observation and warm up.
Gelfand : always solid, and same as Aronian, he will play, but will not desesperately seek for more.

Grischuk and Gashimov : the real contenders heren big hopes upon them and they want to improve and to prove their worthiness for the future.

All this to say that inviting players according to their recent titles or their current form is not sufficient (here we have a WCC contender, WC cycle leader, World Cup Leader), except for the tournament pedigree.

No critics to the players, there professionals, they have their plans and despite all, they are at their best.

But from the organizers, this is really a lazy, if not more, organisation (compare Linares's web site, the stage or everything else with the efforts of Corus or Tal Memorial to improve and modernise).

Is that piece sacrafice in Grishuk match at move 8. still theory?

Sergio, That game was "theory" at least until move 19, as you can see from the notes given above.

I really expecting something interesting games between among the best chess player in the world. Do I miss the update where a big name such as kramnik, anand or even carlsen were not participate?

There should always be a some young aggressive players in a 8 player round robin. I liked the London Classic mix. The London tournament also had some great PR going. Short is my favorite whipping-boy (very much joking!) He has an original and gamey style and a great personality and is definitely a super gm. But yeah, where is Morozevich when you need him? And too true about the Linares web pages... over the years, they have not been too compelling. Now that I'm done dissing this great event that often starts slow and finishes with a bang, I'm going to watch some golf without Tiger: Kramnik and Carlsen and Naka are truly hungry tigers.

@checker: Have you forgotten about Dortmund 2009? Maybe you have, or you only remember the final rounds when things got exciting - which can still happen in Linares.

@all Linares critics: Maybe the organizers can be blamed for
- their poor PR and lack of English coverage [but only paying customers would _really_ have the right to complain!?]
- the reduction to six players. But, as I pointed out before, they are following rather than setting a trend. With such a small field, there is always a risk of having - in hindsight - "the wrong players". On the other hand, a draw is a normal result between world-top players (including some games which are even throughout, where players neutralize each other).
IMO all events have the right to exist:
small elite events as Linares (MTel, Nanjing, ...)
events which are larger and/or include some outsiders (London, Corus)
opens such as Aeroflot which always have decisive games, but - at least this year - also many short draws: what about Zhou Weiqi-Hou Yifan today (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 nice to meet you, let's have a drink at the bar)?

Among the players in Linares, maybe Gelfand can be blamed for his apparently poor form - but he certainly doesn't do it on purpose!

And I am wondering about one thing: Why do all of you still follow the event? Only because you enjoy writing negative comments!!?

Thomas, I enjoy reading your posts....very objective and spoken with a higher degree of intelligence!

If chess players want exciting events, maybe they should start ''paying'' for it themselves.

I can understand that everyone wants more players and more 'fighters' but I wasn't disappointed watching the games up to this point (especially round three). I don't find them boring at all. I think the situation was much more critical some years ago (Kasparov, Kramnik, Leko, Anand in all events), when there was a real discussion about whether 'top chess' can survive at all.

Why they dont play the English attack anymore ?

Few would say that Linares doesn't have the right to exist, but the field could have been more exciting. The last fifteen years Gelfand has amazed the world in maybe one tournament, and a good result for him means middle of the field with 50%, something he rarely manages in top events like Linares. Gashimov too just has a high rating on a rating list but will soon be much further down on it, where he belongs. As Gelfand maybe #15-20. Vallejo hopes to draw his games but has never been close to an even score in all his Linares starts and maybe played one or two memorable games of 70. Instead of these three for example Ivanchuk, Shirov or Ponomariov could have been considered.

@oldrich: I couldn't resist checking some facts about Gelfand, I wonder if you did ... . His latest career highlights include shared second with Kramnik at the Mexico WCh in 2007, and winning the World Cup late in 2009 - that's already two events in three years, and 8/13 at the Jermuk FIDE GP (shared second with Aronian) also deserves at least an honorable mention. As far as 50% being a good result for him, he "routinely" scored 4.5/9 or 5/9 at the Tal Memorial 2006-2009. Yes, he also had worse results - so did Ivanchuk and Shirov, maybe for a slightly different reason: their style is risky, while Gelfand is a perfectionist nicknamed professor for a reason. He always tries to find the (very) best move which frequently gets him into time trouble.
To appreciate Gelfand as a player, I would also strongly recommend to check his "My most memorable games" - which made me 'see the light'.

More briefly on Gashimov: If you reach a top10 rating (based on a mix of beating weaker players and good results in the FIDE GP), you deserve to be invited to the strongest events, simple as that - organizers mostly don't include subjective assessments whether "a player belongs there"! If he falls down again (#15-20 wouldn't be "much further down") he will receive less invitations in the future, but a rating of, say, 2730 would still be supertournament strength.