Criminal castling

Vasily Ivanchuk replaced Teimur Radjabov at the start of Linares

The most prestigious world chess tournament under the auspices of the Spanish city of Linares starts for the 24th time. Over the past two years, it has expanded its format to Mexico, where the first round is held in the city of Morelia from February 17 to 25. After this, the grandmasters move to Linares, where they play the second round from March 2 to 11. This transcontinental tournament system made it possible to establish a significant prize fund of 314,000 euros (first prize 100,000 euros). In selecting the lineup, the organizers still adhere to the established tradition - the strongest chess players in the world are pitted against the most promising young people. So, if in 2003 16-year-old Teimur Radjabov was invited to Linares, who then inflicted a sensational defeat on Garry Kasparov, this time the organizers engaged the equally young Norwegian Magnus Carlsen.

Radjabov was also invited again, and he arrived in Mexico with the rank of having shared first place at the recent prestigious tournament in the Dutch Wijk aan Zee. Teymur settled in a hotel in the town of Patzcuaro, where trouble awaited him. The robbers robbed the room of his father and part-time coach. Attempts to get attention to this incident and any compensation from city authorities and organizers led nowhere. Radjabov, who, according to him, was ready to fight for the first prize, was forced to go home. His place was given to the Ukrainian Vasily Ivanchuk, who has pleasant memories associated with Linares - he won here.

As for the world elite, it is represented by Linares old-timers Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Leko and last year's tournament winner Levon Aronian. According to the old tradition, the organizers do not forget the chess merits of Russia, once again inviting Peter Svidler to the tournament and for the first time Alexander Morozevich.

Of course, in light of recent events, I would like to see Vladimir Kramnik in the competition. However, in recent years, the world champion has not been favoring Linares, where he has always been a welcome participant, and his shadow rivalry with Topalov, which continued at the tournament in Wijk aan Zee, is on hold for now. However, the champion has a different opinion on this matter - in Holland he set his goal to achieve a result no lower than “+3”, regardless of Topalov’s performance (Kramnik was only half a point behind the winning trio). As for the rematch, which Topalov insisted on, then, according to FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, he was denied this. According to FIDE rules, the match for the world championship title must take place no later than six months before the start of the next championship (September 11, 2007 in Mexico), that is, it must end before March 11, which is physically impossible. In addition, the applicant was obliged to transfer the required amount to FIDE's bank account 45 days before the start of the match, which was done only on January 19. In response to Danailov’s reply that the Bulgarian side had lost time due to FIDE’s position, Ilyumzhinov replied: “These are the requirements not of our organization, but of the Swiss bank USB, with which FIDE, as a public organization, has been working for 70 years. And when the Bulgarian side sent bank guarantees to FIDE, we sent them to USB Bank, which did not accept them, but met them halfway and sent a list of four Bulgarian banks with which it works.”

Kramnik will not be in Linares, and Topalov is trailing the famous “toilet scandal”. During the tournament in Wijk aan Zee, an article by Martin Brutingham appeared in the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, who, one might say, accused Silvio Danailov, Topalov's manager, of giving tips to his player during some games. Answering a question from the 64-Chess Review magazine, Danailov said that he was going to bring Brutingham to court: “The journalist who wrote the mentioned article is a very close friend of Hensel, Kramnik’s manager. I was told on the first day of the tournament in Wijk aan Zee that the guy would be watching me on behalf of Mr. Hensel.” As for the latter, Carsten Hensel retorted this: “Neither Vladimir nor I have anything to do with this article. Brutingham is an independent German journalist, he shared his observations on the pages of the publication.”

Be that as it may, Topalov and his manager will be watched with increased attention in Linares. In the meantime, the Bulgarian played a draw at Anandom at the start with white. The fights Svidler - Aronian and Ivanchuk - Leko also ended peacefully. The only victory belongs to Carlsen, who defeated Morozevich with white pieces.

Oleg STETSKO