Haven't seen the pairings posted yet, although at least the Linares website is alive in the nick of time. (Just in time to crash from server overload an hour into the round tomorrow.) There's also a Linares blog (both Spanish) that's been updating regularly for a while with good info. Such as the fact that for the first time they are implementing a version of the Sofia rules and prohibiting draw offers before move 40.
The biggest Linares news in the Spanish press, by far, is the announcement not of the 2010 field but of Magnus Carlsen agreeing to participate in 2011. Impressive celebrity clout, I must say. Topalov, who lives in Spain, is getting some decent press but the loss of his #1 ranking has reduced his news peg status, it seems. He's never won Linares, though he shared first with Kasparov in 2005. Aronian (2006) and Grischuk (2009, tiebreak over Ivanchuk) are the only former Linares winners in the field. As with Kramnik and Dortmund, there are so few winners of Linares because Kasparov won so many titles. He took seven and a half, while Anand and Ivanchuk have three each and Kramnik one and a half (splitting the title with Kasparov in 2000).
Gelfand played in six Linares events in the 1990s but hasn't been here since 1997. Even back then it was never his event. He finished a strong second to Kasparov in 1990 but I don't think he managed even a plus score after that. In 1997 he lost a wild KID to Topalov that brings back memories. PGN after the jump. Gashimov is coming off a miserable appearance at the World Team event, where he was unrecognizable and lost three in a row. He's been bobbing in and out of the top 20 for a few years now but has yet to put up the big win or beat the big boys. In the past two years I see only three wins against top-15 opposition: two against Shirov and a lovely mini against Gelfand from a Spanish team event. But he wasn't losing much either. And, as has already been noted, he hasn't had the greatest invites before now, so this is his chance. Or he could end up like Wang Yue, who played in just about every supertournament last year and after mediocre results now seems to have disappeared despite being in the top ten.
I'm really intrigued by Grischuk's recent run of form. Despite receiving Kasparov's highest praise when he debuted on the scene in 1999, he's been seen as a sort of exciting part-timer with tremendous talent, bad hair, and a middling work ethic. As more of a Morozevich-type crowd-pleaser than a supertournament winner. Now he's won Linares and the Russian superfinal in the same year. It might be the case that years have helped him settle down and that chess can coexist with his poker career. Aronian has largely stopped putting up the occasional dud and must now be considered a top favorite in any event he plays in. This can only be said about five players on the planet and it's no coincidence there's a 20-point rating gap between them and the rest. (Ivanchuk can also win anytime, anywhere, of course, but we all know he's never going to be consistent.)
The Linares field again: Topalov, Aronian, Grischuk, Gelfand, Gashimov, Vallejo.
Still nothing on the pairings page, but the official live page reveals Gelfand-Gashimov, Vallejo-Topalov, Aronian-Grischuk.
Update: All games drawn without many twists or turns.
[Event "Linares 14th"]
[Site "Linares"]
[Date "1997.02.11"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Gelfand, Boris"]
[Black "Topalov, Veselin"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "E92"]
[WhiteElo "2700"]
[BlackElo "2725"]
[PlyCount "64"]
[EventDate "1997.02.??"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "11"]
[EventCountry "ESP"]
[EventCategory "18"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 e5 7. Be3 exd4 8. Nxd4
Re8 9. f3 c6 10. Bf2 d5 11. exd5 cxd5 12. O-O Nc6 13. c5 Nh5 14. g3 Bh3 15. Re1
Qg5 16. Ndb5 Rad8 17. Nd6 Bd4 18. Qc1 Be3 19. Bxe3 Rxe3 20. Kf2 d4 21. Nd1
Rxe2+ 22. Rxe2 Qd5 23. Ne4 Ne5 24. Qg5 Re8 25. Rd2 Qc4 26. Ndc3 h6 27. Qh4 dxc3
28. Rd8 cxb2 29. Rxe8+ Kg7 30. Rd1 Qc2+ 31. Rd2 b1=Q 32. Qxh3 Qcc1 0-1
Two places more for info : http://chesspro.ru/ (always with something interesting from Spain as there are Russian players) and details from opening ceremony with video http://reports.chessdom.com/news-2010/linares-2010-opening-ceremony
Kills me that three different Spanish sites have opening ceremony and drawing of the lots videos and pics without actually giving the damn drawing results or pairings!
"He [Gashimov]'s been bobbing in and out of the top ten for a few years now but has yet to put up the big win or beat the big boys."
Sorry Mig, but your facts are wrong and/or incomplete, maybe you confuse him with someone else?
Gashimov crossed 2700 for the first time in July 2008 (less than two years ago) and entered the top10 in November 2009.
In the FIDE GP events, he beat the following players who are (or in one case were) top15:
Baku - Svidler, Kamsky, Grischuk (shared first with Carlsen and Wang Yue)
Elista - Eljanov, Grischuk, Mamedyarov (1/2 point behind the winners).
Yes, Gashimov had a bad result at the World Team Championship - he was apparently sick but didn't talk much about it. In his case, some people seem to take this as strong and rather definite evidence that he isn't that strong after all. Other players (Ivanchuk, Shirov, recently Nakamura) are easily forgiven occasional bad results.
Bottom line: let's wait and see what he does in Linares. I wouldn't consider him "the man to beat", not at all capable of an even or plus score - unless he lost a lot of self-confidence from his last bad event.
I actually meant bouncing around the top 20. I think this is his first visit to the top 10. (Meaning he hasn't left and come back.) I set my (entirely arbitrary) cut-off rating for his opponents at the time they met at 2740, I believe. (I don't think you get top-ten cred by beating Eljanov, or even Kamsky these days.) So I stick to my point that he hasn't shown he can beat the best, partly because he hasn't had many opportunities to do so. I mentioned his Grand Prix success in the last post on Linares.
Personally, I'm in favor of inconsistency in my elite players. More fun. Mamedyarov is one I still can't figure out. He plays atrocious garbage sometimes but then plays some amazing moves and gets on hot streaks. I'm just old and used to "top ten player" meaning someone who lives there, not stops by for coffee. But that era may be waning with all the parity and more frequent lists. We have a solid top five that will be hard to crack other than occasional raids by guys like Ivanchuk and Morozevich. But 6-10 is the wild west, which is fun.
To combine themes, as far as I can tell Gashimov has only played three classical games against the current top five (Carlsen, Topalov, Anand, Kramnik, Aronian). One against Carlsen, two against Aronian. Not including a junior game against Aronian in 2002.
Sorry for being pedantic - maybe someone will suggest that frogbert is now using my handle? ,:) Just a joke with a bit of content, of course you can check that I still use the same Dutch IP address ... .
Even this ("bouncing around the top20") isn't quite correct: ever since he crossed 2700, Gashimov lost rating points on one FIDE list - the very next one in October 2008 due to one bad result (1/5) in the Spanish league, despite performing as expected at the Sochi GP and slightly above expectations at Poikovsky in the same period. March 2010 will be the next drop, unless he has a truly great result at Linares to compensate for the 19 points he lost in Bursa. But overall, while his play may be unstable, his results were (with a few exceptions) stable or slowly and continuously improving.
While I agree with you that the top five is solid and hard to crack, I would say so with certainty only for the very nearby future, say the remainder of 2010. To name a few candidates:
- maybe Gelfand can make another step even at his age, which is between yours and mine (*1967)?
- Gashimov has at least the ambition
- looking down on the current official list: maybe Vachier-Lagrave? He also needs to be given more opportunities.
- looking further down as far as the Jan2010 list goes: have you lost faith in Nakamura?
Well, since you are being pedantic, he dropped from 11th to 14th on the Sept 09 list -- despite not playing a game!
Cracking the current top 5 in 2010? If anyone other than Ivanchuk does it I'll be surprised. 50 is a lot of points to pull off in a year. Mamedyarov, Grischuk, Svidler, Radjabov, Shirov, they've been up there before and are also starting from a higher spot, so I could see that happening more than a first-timer this year.
I suppose the interesting side bet is who do you think will get to the top ten first, Leko, who is out for the first time in around eight years, or Nakamura (of Vachier-Lagrave if you like) who has never been there? The safe bet is definitely Leko. As Gelfand is showing, that sort of steadiness ages very well. But Nakamura is only a dozen or so points out of the top 10 on the next list, illustrating how far that is from the current top five.
The most amusing ratings result for Linares would be if Aronian got +2 or better and Topalov collapsed with -3. Then Danailov's opportunistic criticism of Anand-Kramnik as being a match between the no. 5 and 6 in the world would come back to haunt him :) Though I can't see Topalov doing that badly.
Round 1
Gelfand - Gashimov
Vallejo - Topalov
Aronian - Grischuk
Spanish chessbase usually has all the data @ Linares (or Bilbao , etc), 4 some reason the english chessbase don´t.
http://www.chessbase.com/espanola/newsdetail2.asp?id=8034
How about a Linares (Category 21) update, guys?
Aronian-Grischuk turned into a swapfest early and they drew well shy of the 40 move limit, on move 26. Vallejo-Topalov swapped as well and made it to move 40. Gelfand-Gashimov is still going with maybe a small edge in space and structure for Black in a B+N vs B+N endgame. Not exactly riveting stuff today.
Full pairings now up here:
http://www.ajedrez.ciudaddelinares.es/resul.htm
Vasiliev is in Linares for Chesspro, so we should get some comments after the games. His first report has interviews with all the participants, but sadly not too much of interest (except the familiar old photos!) - Grischuk takes the biscuit for saying he's never seen what's so special about Linares...
Maybe worth mentioning is Gelfand explaining his poor results in Turkey by the fact that he was surprised that he got a lot of attention in Israel after winning the World Cup (he reasons it's a small country without too much sporting success!) - now he says he's rested and ready for chess again.
Gashimov was asked how he saved hopeless positions against Caruana and Li Chao and had this to say:
"It strikes me that they had the same problems that I had when I switched from normal tournaments to those that we're used to calling "elite". The chess played in them is completely different! At times those who don't have much idea about chess say: "If I could spend as much time on theory as you then I'd also have a 2750 rating!" But it's not like that. It's a completely different level of chess. And nobody simply gives in. I also played in opens. When you get a good position it's quite easy to win, but at this level winning isn't so simple".
http://chesspro.ru/_events/2010/linares1.html
All three finished. Yawn and drawn.
After Mig's blog, chesspro along with TWIC is the best chess site. Use the link posted by mishanp and look at the pic of Володя Крамник!
Gelfand vs. Gashimov had some fast chess between the 30th and the 40th move. Drawn, but no yawn here.
A dull round one. I hope the examples of wood chopping displayed in this round are not a forecast of the type of play these players will be satisfied with, fulfilling Gashimov's statement that "at this level winning isn't so simple".
Am watching Gashimov carefully here. He's the only story. (Is he super-tourney material? What's his style? His upside? Etc.,etc.) All the other players are dinosaurs with zero upside.
Well, if Aronian and Vallejo, who were born in the same year as my daughter, are dinosaurs, then I must be a trilobite. Let's hope for fighting chess tomorrow.
"All the other players are dinosaurs with zero upside"
Hm? Neither of Grischuk nor Aronian has any upside? At 26-27?
Grischuk hasn't really played many super-tournaments either, for someone being 2700+ as a junior. I still see him as someone who might take another step. In a way he already did by going from his "typical" 2710 to 2730 ratings to 2748 back in april last year (after Linares). Ok, he lost some 14-15 points again from there - but now he's above 2750 and sniffing at 2760. And unlike Jakovenko, Grischuk does well also against the very best players in the world on a regular basis.
Aronian sped right into the very super-elite 4-5 years ago, winning the WCC in 2005 and Linares in 2006. Then he took a dip with the terrible M-Tel performance in april 2008 - but after he got his play together again in the fall of 2008, he has only become better IMHO, and then he won the grand prix 2008-2009 showing that he was well ahead of his competition there.
Zero upside for Aronian? That's a strange thing to say about someone that might be playing for a world championship title 10 years from now!
frog is my "anonymous" account... ;o)
Okay, I concede Aronian has maybe 20 to 30pts of Elo upside. But in terms of cardinal position, he has peaked and is already surpassed by a still-rising Carlsen.
Nakamura will be playing on the rising stars team
this year ,along with Caruana , So and Giri against Van Wely, Heine Nielsen , Ljubojevic and Svidler .
It looks like the rising star team has never been so strong , there will be blood on the dance floor .
http://players.chessdom.com/fabiano-caruana/rising-stars-experience-2010
Interesting that once again Van Wely is picked for a major tournament. Sorry if I am being unfair to the guy, but when was the last time he managed a plus score in one of these events? It often seems he is wheeled in to take a beating from the best in the world, what do you do to deserve that role?
Mig - your statement "I don't think you get top-ten cred by beating Eljanov, or even Kamsky these days," begs for examination.
How easy is it really to beat Gata? I don't see top-level tournament results lately, for sure, but I also don't see very many losses.
It seems to me that much of the time, the difference between an elite performance and a non-elite one is the number of WINS a player can eke out. Yes?
Some players apparently believe that the way to win a tournament is to play somewhat safely with drawn games until the right moments - or right opponents, when the plus score is expected.
I think my man, Max Vachier-Legrave, was doing that in Moscow, and finding out, after an importune loss, that perhaps that strategy is not always wise. Besides, he's way too young for that.
Interesting start to the Linares games today. Gashimov's playing the a6 Slav (an old Anand favourite) against Topalov while Grischuk- Gelfand is headed for a pawn structure treated in Ivan Sokolov's recent book on pawn structures. Let's see if Grischuk plays it better than Gligoric or as well as Spassky.
From an interview with Yusupov on Chessbase:
"Wenn jemand Supergroßmeister werden will, sollte er spätestens mit sechs Jahren beginnen. "
If one wants to become a super GM, one should begin at the latest at the age of six.
Interesting. Any comments? Anyone know off the top of their heads at what age todays super GMs began, and past WCs?
Nice to see a main line Nimzo today, btw.
Its a classic IQP and not a structure to enter against Grischuk with white who handles these situations really really well. Contrast with Kramniks handling at wijk where he just got himself a lost position as white. This was a great game by Grischuk a model of its kind - the 2 minor piece exchanges on d5 were very instructive. Forcing the g6 weakening, Bh6 Ne5 then dominating the dark squares , the timing of h4,h5. Finally just organising a rook lift to g3 and Gelfand collapsed. You can trace his problems to the development of the Bd7 rather than b6 and Bb7 but it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Topalov also scored a good win as it looked for a long time that Gashimov was going to equalised but he never quite did and Toppy ruthlessly homed in on the 2 weaknesses of the f pawn and weak king position and did him in. Impressive win by Toppy and a good sign of his form
Its a classic IQP and not a structure to enter against Grischuk with white who handles these situations really really well. Contrast with Kramniks handling at wijk where he just got himself a lost position as white. This was a great game by Grischuk a model of its kind - the 2 minor piece exchanges on d5 were very instructive. Forcing the g6 weakening, Bh6 Ne5 then dominating the dark squares , the timing of h4,h5. Finally just organising a rook lift to g3 and Gelfand collapsed. You can trace his problems to the development of the Bd7 rather than b6 and Bb7 but it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Topalov also scored a good win as it looked for a long time that Gashimov was going to equalised but he never quite did and Toppy ruthlessly homed in on the 2 weaknesses of the f pawn and weak king position and did him in. Impressive win by Toppy and a good sign of his form
Seems like Grischuk is trying to prove that he's got a "rating upside" too. :o)
+25,9 in 18 games since the January rating list. Highest (live) rating for him ever, and ranked 6th for the first time since July 2003 when he also was ranked 6th (and at the same time the #1 junior).
Grischuk was/is obviously a great talent - interesting to see if the still young player can become as consistent as say Aronian and be among the players that will colour elite events and fight for the throne when Anand/Kramnik/Topalov decide to call it a day.
While Grischuk's IQP win against Gelfand is a great illustration of attacking play, I prefer Topalov's big piece win vs. Gashimov, very instructive and impressive. Topalov is definitely in form.
Funktioniert nicht immer.
"Doesn't always work." I started at five.
You're right. Truly impressive game by Grischuk. It reminds me of an old Inside Chess article by John Donaldson where he used a game by Tigran Petrosian to illustrate similar attacking themes. The correct defensive set-ups in these situations were also highlighted by Korchnoi's games against Karpov in the French Tarrasch. Chess is such a complex thing.
Topa´s victory remind me a lot of Kramnik´s style today , maybe they miss each other .
I have the feeling that playing like the old Kramnik (safe as black , pressuring with initiative as white) could bring great results for Veselin in this tournament , let´s see what happens against Aronian tomorrow.
Topalov and Aronian both have white and don't have to face Grischuk on the last day. This will be a nice schedule for them if they're in contention for first place. Grischuk has Black on the last day. Grischuk is #6 in the live ratings. Are he and Ivanchuk the best players in the world currently outside the top 5? If not, who is?
"Seems like Grischuk is trying to prove that he's got a "rating upside" too. :o) +25,9 in 18 games since the January rating list. Highest (live) rating for him ever, and ranked 6th for the first time since July 2003 when he also was ranked 6th (and at the same time the #1 junior). Grischuk was/is obviously a great talent - interesting to see if the still young player can become as consistent as say Aronian and be among the players that will colour elite events and fight for the throne when Anand/Kramnik/Topalov decide to call it a day."
Sorry. You posted very similar points first, but I read them after I posted. Sorry.
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