2003 City of Linares Tournament

It has been 5 days since the historical win of 15 year old Teimour Radjabov over the world's number 1 player Garry Kasparov, and the rattle of that around the world is far from over. El Pais, Spain's leading newspaper dedicated a full page, by Ace-reporter Leontxo Garcia to profile the outgoing Azari and Spanish TV had a show dealing with Radja and his phenomenal achievement.

Sofie Leko and her dad, GM A. Petrosian

Following these reports teaches one a lot about this talented youngster. I was amused to learn that he used to read Sherlock Holmes books but stopped when he started realizing how the villain is always the most sentimental character, the one the reader often gets the most attached to, and so he guessed the endings in these books before reaching them! He likes music a lot, ranging from Beethoven and Bach on one end to Shakira and the Beatles on the other but he did note that he doesn't like those 'one hit wonders' - performers who score big with one song and disappear or can't make another hit.

Teimour confessed that European football (soccer) is his true passion. His favorite team is none other than the legendary Spanish Real Madrid, with its Brazilian stars Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos. When asked about how he feels about beating the world's leading player and what his next goal was, his answer came without hesitation: "I want to be able to beat everyone!" An ambitious but candid answer from someone who says he has no chess idols, but has a lot of appreciation and respect to players such as Kasparov, Fischer, Tal, and Karpov, for example. So what's next for someone who is a GM at 15 and gets invitations to mega events where he gets to create sensations? "Well," says Radjabov, "My main objective is to become the world chess champion". Not surprising at all. There is no argument that he is one of the biggest names to watch for in the present and future and that this wish of his could well come true.

GM A. Kharlov from the open section

As a closing question, this serious and mature wunderkind was asked if he had any opinion on the situation regarding Iraq. Modestly confessing to not knowing all the details and the rift between the US and the European Union he opined that he believes that if the goal is indeed to disarm Saddam and Iraq, then not all the non-combative options have been exhausted.

With 9 more rounds to go in Linares, many, me included hope to see more of this high level chess Radja is showing. Especially exciting will be round 9 on March 3rd when he once again going to face his hometown elder, Kasparov in what is expected to be a high voltage game! Can he make it two for two? Will Kasparov claim his revenge? Stay tuned!

Da games:

Anand - Leko: Vishy was facing another Sicilian four Knights/ Rossolimo with 4…Qc7 who decided on a new aggressive approach at all cost! 8…Qc5 is the main test with black forking some stuff, and 9.Qe2 was tried before, but here Anand went 8.c4!? offering a pawn that must be accepted. Then black tried to avoid opening lines with his 11...c2 only to run into first 12 d4!, Which he wisely declined and then 15.d6!, which he had to take. For his material deficit, white got much better development, some open lines and diagonals and now we all waited to see which will prevail: White's initiative and proclivity for dynamic play or black's material edge and his fame as a great defender. No one was surprised when black sanely declined capturing a third pawn on d4. It quickly became evident that just to survive, black had to return the material and while he managed to complete his development, white was nursing a comfy edge. Maybe 25…e5?! Was ill timed (maybe 25…e6!?) because after the simple capture and 27.Bd5, black

GM Anand vs GM Leko

was already obliged to go for the endgame with 27…Be6. Now without Queens the endgame with 2 vs 1 on the Queenside was for all means and purposes like being a pawn up since black couldn't very well mobilize his Kingside. Perhaps Vishy should have opted for the simpler way of advancing his pawns quickly, (33.b5!?) creating one passed pawn and forcing black into passivity. Instead he lifted his rooks with 34.Rd2 to d5 and b5 and couldn't quite break through. Still the fundamental advantage of an extra Queenside pawn was not changed and on move 43 Peter erred with 43…Re5? Allowing 44.Rxd8! Anand nicely sacrificed an exchange for the last Queenside pawn (since the pawn ending after: 45…Re7 46.Rxe7 Kxe7 47.Bg5+ Ke8 48.Bxd8 Kxd8 49.f3! is won as well) and despite some stubborn defending the outcome was expected. 50…f4?! Was a desperado try that lost another pawn, but Vishy seemed to have relaxed a bit and won by a narrow margin. Perhaps the plan of creating another passer on the h file and losing the g pawn was a bit too generous. With this nice win Anand overtook the lead from Leko, along with Kramnik.

Vallejo - Kasparov:

GM Vallejo vs GM Kasparov

The Kasparov of Linares 2003 is after some full points desperately. Today he deployed the Slav defense, an emergency reserve weapon to try to get something out of his young opponent. On move 13, he took some time and played a novelty 13…f6. After seeing 14.Rb1 he really went into the think tank and we got a position where white had double pawns on the a file and black on the e file, and it was much easier for white to attack black's - yet Kasparov played quite quickly. His moves from 20 on were blitzed. He must have realized and calculated the transposition into an ending with B of opposite color, which is a draw. Oddly, at what was supposed to have been the easiest part of the game, both players played inaccurately. Why did Garry ever play 29…c5? Is a mystery, and once he pushed it he should have pitched it on c5 since after 30…c4 At some points, white had the idea of playing Bc3, blocking the black c pawn, in order to shut off the f1-a6 diagonal. Now he had a plan of getting his K to b6 attacking the pawn on b7 and when black defends it through the h1-a8 white trades one of his a pawns and wins with the other. Possibly black can hold but it would have been a worthy try! Absent that idea, the game indeed ended in a draw on move 41 when the time control was reached.

Kramnik - Radjabov:

GM Kramnik vs GM Radjabov

Teimour is a big fan of the Steinitz French and Vlady has prepared a special dish for him with the interesting novelty 14.Qh4 which paid off in a speedy way. Black's weak Kingside quickly earned white a thematic good N vs bad B middle game and as it often happens the worse side makes a mistake. 19…Qc4? Was a typical one. This attempt at activity was ill timed since white wouldn't play 20.Rc3 on account of 30...Qxa2 (not 30…Qxd4? 31.Rc7) and if 31.Rc7?? Qa1+ and Qa5+ wins, but rather did 20.Rhd1 (20.Re1 was also interesting) and the a2 pawn is safe: 20…Qxa2 21.Ra3 Qc4 22.Rg3 and Qxh6 to come with a huge edge for white. So soon thereafter the poor Q had to retreat to c7 and see the strong 22.f5! breaking the black position to pieces. Black's position got SO BAD that in time trouble even though Kramnik was making '4th best moves' as per Fritz, his win was never in doubt! The black K went on an excursion mafia-style, from which it never came back. A convincing win for Vlad, and a tough lesson to Radja.