Linares chess tournament

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The annual Linares chess tournament, usually played around the end of February, takes its name from the city of Linares in the Jaén province of Andalusia, Spain, in which it is held. It is sometimes described as the Wimbledon of chess. It is one of the strongest annual tournaments held on the chess tour, along with the Corus chess tournament and Dortmund chess tournament.

The event, sponsored by Luis Rentero, was first held in 1978. At that time it was not an elite event and was won by the relatively unknown Swede Jaan Eslon (on tie-break from the Argentine Roberto Debarnot). After the following year's event, it was held every other year until 1987 when there was no tournament. That year Linares was the site of the Candidates Final, the match to determine who played World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov for his title, with Anatoly Karpov playing Andrei Sokolov. Since 1988 the Linares chess tournament has been held every year with the exception of 1996, when the Women's World Chess Championship was held.

In 1998, Linares was changed from a single round-robin tournament to a seven player double round-robin event (meaning that each participant plays every other participant twice, once with each color).

Luis Rentero is notorious for being a strong opponent of short draws in chess, to the point that in 1991 he offered cash bonuses for playing longer games.

In 2006 and 2007 the first half of the tournament was held in the Mexican city of Morelia, returning to Linares for the second half.

1 Winners
2 Full Results
- 2.1 2007 Results
3 External links

[edit] Winners

1978 Jaan Eslon
1979 Larry Christiansen
1981 Anatoly Karpov and Larry Christiansen
1983 Boris Spassky
1985 Ljubomir Ljubojević and Robert Hübner
1988 Jan Timman
1989 Vassily Ivanchuk
1990 Garry Kasparov
1991 Vassily Ivanchuk
1992 Garry Kasparov
1993 Garry Kasparov
1994 Anatoly Karpov
1995 Vassily Ivanchuk
1997 Garry Kasparov
1998 Viswanathan Anand
1999 Garry Kasparov
2000 Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov
2001 Garry Kasparov
2002 Garry Kasparov
2003 Péter Lékó (Joint winner with Vladimir Kramnik; but had a better tiebreak score)
2004 Vladimir Kramnik
2005 Garry Kasparov (with the same score as Veselin Topalov; won on tiebreak because of more wins with black)
2006 Levon Aronian
2007 Viswanathan Anand

[edit] Full Results

[edit] 2007 Results

Final Results of 2007:[1]

XXIV SuperGM Morelia/Linares MEX/ESP (MEX/ESP), 17 ii-10 iii 2007cat. XX (2746)

                                    1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8 

1 Anand, Viswanathan     g IND 2779 ** 11 1= 0= == == == 1=  8.5  2820
2 Carlsen, Magnus        g NOR 2690 00 ** 1= == == 11 1= =0  7.5  2782
3 Morozevich, Alexander  g RUS 2741 0= 0= ** == =1 =1 01 =1  7.5  2775
4 Aronian, Levon         g ARM 2744 1= == == ** == 0= == ==  7.0  2745
5 Svidler, Peter         g RUS 2728 == == =0 == ** == == =1  7.0  2748
6 Ivanchuk, Vassily      g UKR 2750 == 00 =0 1= == ** 1= ==  6.5  2715
7 Topalov, Veselin       g BUL 2783 == 0= 10 == == 0= ** ==  6.0  2690
8 Leko, Peter            g HUN 2749 0= =1 =0 == =0 == == **  6.0  2695