Linares chess tournament
Chesspedia, the Chess Encyclopedia
The annual Linares chess tournament takes its name from the city of Linares in the Jaén province of Andalusia, Spain in which it is held. Its importance is such that it is sometimes described as the Wimbledon of chess. It is perenially one of the strongest annual tournaments held on the chess tour, along with the Corus chess tournament (also known as Wijk aan Zee or Hoogovens Beverwijk) and Dortmund.
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. After the following year's event, it was held every other year until 1987 when there was no tournament, Linares instead being the site of the Candidates Final (the match to determine who played World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov for his title) between Anatoly Karpov and Andrei Sokolov. Since 1988 it has been held every year with the exception of 1996, when the Women's World Championship was held.
As of 2004, Linares is a seven-player, double-round-robin event (that is, each participant plays everybody else twice, once with each colour).
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. Linares tiebreak decisions are awarded to whichever player has had more wins.
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 Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik
- 2001 Garry Kasparov
- 2002 Garry Kasparov
- 2003 Péter Lékó (with the same score as Kramnik; won on tiebreak because he had more wins)
- 2004 Vladimir Kramnik
- 2005 Garry Kasparov (with the same score as Veselin Topalov; won on tiebreak because of more wins with black)
