The 22nd Linares tournament takes place 22nd February - 10th March 2005. Round 1 Wednesday February 23rd 2005. Rest days March 1st and 7th 2005. The event is again a 7 player double round robin category 20 event (ave 2743).
ELO Listing: No. Name t NAT ja05 1 Kasparov, Garry................. g RUS 2804 2 Anand, Viswanathan.............. g IND 2786 3 Topalov, Veselin................ g BUL 2757 5 Leko, Peter..................... g HUN 2749 7 Adams, Michael.................. g ENG 2741 18 Vallejo Pons, Francisco......... g ESP 2686 25 Kasimdzhanov, Rustam............ g UZB 2678 Average Rating 2743 Category 20
On his last time out he was the winner of the Russian Championship, can Kasparov repeat this success? Photo © Eugeny Atarov http://www.chesspro.ru
Pre-event favourite is again Garry Kasparov (see odds Betsson). Whether this is justified is another question. Kasparov simply doesn't play enough these days to know. Kasparov was 2nd= at Linares last year with one win and 11 draws, 50% in the European Club Cup cost him a lot of points also. His victory in the 57th Russian Championship was extremely impressive and achieved with riskier play than he's tried for years. Kasparov always tries hard even when things aren't going his way and doesn't lose a lot of games, I think its pretty certain he'll be highly motivated to do well. Against that Kasparov is regularly getting into time trouble and has been letting players off the hook late in the game. It would be of course foolish to rule him out as a winner of this event but probably equally foolish to believe he's a certainty, which for many years he was.
Viswanathan Anand. Photo © Michiel Abeln
Viswanathan Anand returns to Linares after missing last year. He's been consistantly a high level performer in recent years and if trends continue he will eventually overhaul Kasparov as World number one. His play has faults, in particular he has been known to misplay endings but he seems to now accept this because his well prepared fluid style makes him a formidable competitor. In retrospect an under-par 1.5/4 start in the recent Wijk aan Zee tournament cost him first place but he still finished only half a point behind the winner. Like Kasparov he will almost certainly be there and there abouts.
Peter Leko. Photo © Michiel Abeln
You can make a strong case for a number of players winning Linares this year, Kasparov and Anand obviously but, for me, I lean towards Peter Leko taking the honours. At 25 years old he's surely hasn't reached his peak as a player and can anyone say they're in better form? He drew his match with Kramnik in Brissago only under the pressure of trying to save a one point lead (to be sure it must have felt like a loss at the time) and then straight back at Wijk aan Zee he took clear first undefeated playing extremely strongly. Leko had a patchy mid-year on the run up to his match with Kramnik, which is natural, but in Linares last year he probably played the most impressive chess only to be relegated to second when he missed a nasty combination against Kramnik. If he wins in Linares then surely no-matter what the ratings say you'd have to call him the strongest player in the World. That said, many players have promised much in the era of Kasparov domination only to follow up great results with mediocre if not down right bad chess. Can Leko finally be the one?
Vesselin Topalov. Photo © Michiel Abeln
4th favourite in the betting list is Vesselin Topalov. Its hard to make any predictions about his chances except to say it wouldn't be a total shock if he won Linares. He finished on 50% last year with 1 win and 1 loss just a point off the winners. For a long time it looked like he was the near certainty to win the FIDE Championship in Libya winning almost all his games in great style before suddenly going out to Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the semi-final rapid playoffs which isn't really his forte. He led for a long time at Wijk aan Zee last month but lost two quite poor games to Adams and especially to Polgar late on in the event where he just dropped a piece.
Michael Adams. Photo © Michiel Abeln
5th favourite is Michael Adams. Again Adams performed creditably at Wijk aan Zee finishing just half a point behind third placed Topalov. Adams has a tough if not spectacular style. He is especially ruthless against players who take liberties and also his clear positional style can cause anyone trouble. Adams reached the final of the FIDE Championship in Libya only to be defeated by Kasimdzhanov in rapid playoffs which certainly used to be Adams forte. He can win Linares but more likely he'll finish somewhere between +1 and -1.
Francisco Vallejo Pons in play against Kasparov in last years event. Photo © Jesús J. Boyero Gabarre
Francisco Vallejo Pons has competed in the last three Linares tournaments as the local player. He's finished with 5/12 on each occasion walking away with a bunch of rating points from the rest of the field. He always takes the event extremely seriously and is very tenatious. He hasn't won more than one game each time he's played (last time none) and will surely be relying on not losing for a respectable result.
Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Photo © Fred Lucas
Rustam Kasimdzhanov became the shock winner of the FIDE Championship in Libya in June last year. This is his first major invitation on the back of that. On his way to the title he beat most of the major players in the event, Ivanchuk, Almasi, Grischuk, Topalov and finally Adams. Most of these matches he won on rapid or blitz tie-break so he didn't gain as many ELO points as you might imagine. I think he's justifiably an outsider to win the event along with Vallejo but it doesn't mean he can't do well and a plus score is definitely achievable. He had a very good +4 score at the Olympiad and since then has only played a rapid event. I've no doubt he will be well prepared and he's already proved his mental toughness in winning the FIDE title. I don't think he'll finish first and I don't think he'll finish last, beyond that I really don't know.
Its been noticable that the lower rated participants have been picking up rating points in this event. However surely at some point this isn't going to happen and the leading players will be looking for ways to get points from Vallejo and Kasimdzhanov in particular, especially as +2 has won the event the last two years.
Previous Linares Tournament Winners No Year Winner Score AvRat Cat 1 1978 Jaan Eslon (Debarnot) 6/9 2363 5 2 1979 Christiansen 8/11 2459 9 3 1981 Karpov (Christiansen) 8/11 2567 13 4 1983 Spassky 6.5/10 2598 14 5 1985 Ljubojevic (Huebner) 7/11 2595 14 1987 Karpov-Sokolov Candidates Match 6 1988 Timman 8.5/11 2602 15 7 1989 Ivanchuk 7.5/10 2629 16 8 1990 Kasparov 8/11 2627 16 9 1991 Ivanchuk 9.5/13 2658 17 10 1992 Kasparov 10/13 2659 17 11 1993 Kasparov 10/13 2676 18 12 1994 Karpov 11/13 2684 18 13 1995 Ivanchuk 10/13 2654 17 1996 No event 14 1997 Kasparov 8.5/11 2701 19 15 1998 Anand 7.5/12 2752 21 16 1999 Kasparov 10.5/14 2733 20 17 2000 Kramnik/Kasparov 6/10 2751 21 18 2001 Kasparov 7.5/10 2721 19 19 2002 Kasparov 8/12 2732 20 20 2003 Leko (Kramnik) 7/12 2732 20 21 2004 Kramnik 7/12 2731 20
(Bracketed players finished on the same score as the official winner. 2000 was the only shared title, although I'm open to correction on this point about the early events).