Thursday, February 08, 2007

It's Linares Time Again

It's Linares time again later this month. The first half, like last year, will be in Morelia slated for 16 - 25 February 2007; second half will be in Linares itself between 2 to 11 March 2007.

Israeli grandmaster Alex Finkel has some preview notes on the World Chess Network:

In Linares there is only one player who is clearly inferior to all the rest, that's why it's going to be pretty difficult tournament for Magnus. On the other hand it might also be his chance as other players might try too hard to beat him (Naiditch's performance in Dortmund 2005 should be a source for inspiration for Carlsen!) . Another potential candidate to finish with negative score is Morozevich, who is traditionally performing rather poorly against the top players, but Moro is capable to beat everyone so his result will greatly depend on his form. I won't be surprised if he ends up a tourney at one of the top places, but I consider this scenario quite unlikely.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The organisers let Carlsen participate in Linares but did not invite Karjakin, despite the latter's results in Wijk Aan Zee in 2006 and 2007. Is this because Carlsen has the higher rating?

Anonymous said...

Karjakin might not be that interesting knowing how common are chess superkids from former USSR. Carlsen, on the other hand, is lonely on the west.