The “Wimbledon of Chess” was played from 22-Feb-1998 to 9-Mar-1998.
XV Ciudad de Linares (ESP), 1998 ————————————————————— 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ————————————————————— 1 Viswanathan Anand g IND ** 1= 0= == 1= =1 =1 7½ 2 Alexei Shirov g ESP 0= ** == =1 10 10 11 7 3 Garry Kasparov g RUS 1= == ** == == == == 6½ 4 Vladimir Kramnik g RUS == =0 == ** =1 == 1= 6½ 5 Peter Svidler g RUS 0= 01 == =0 ** 10 =1 5½ 6 Vassily Ivanchuk g UKR =0 01 == == 01 ** 0= 5 7 Veselin Topalov g BUL =0 00 == 0= =0 1= ** 4
Round 1 – Shirov 0-1 Anand, rest drawn
A rare concentration of heavy pieces around a pawn! |
Final winning position |
I consider this a model game where the two Rooks nicely outplay the White Queen.
Round 2 – All games decisive. Anand 1-0 Svidler. Ivanchuk blunders!
Black to play and win (solution at the bottom) |
Round 3 – Kasparov defeats Anand, Ivanchuk blunders again!
White to play and win |
Round 4, 5 – All games drawn
Round 6 – Shirov on fire, rest drawn
White to play and win |
Round 7 – Topalov wins his first, Ivanchuk loses his 3rd
Ivanchuk chose the fastest way to lose and played 52. Rxh4 and resigned immediately |
Round 8 – All drawn
Round 9 – Ivanchuk defeats Shirov, rest drawn.
Round 10
How did Shirov choose to end the game?
Black to play and win |
White to play and win |
Black to play and win |
After Anand’s Nb6+, Topalov gave up his Queen and went on to lose 50 moves later |
- Mighty Kasparov (2825) could only win one game and drew the rest of them to remain undefeated!
- Shirov (placed 2nd) won the most games (five)
Solutions
30… Rxe4 0-1 |
48. Qxe5 dxe5 49. Rxd7 1-0 |
26. Bd7 Rd8 27. Be6 Re8 28. Qg5 1-0 |
47… Bh3! 48. gxh3 Kf5 49. Kf2 Ke4 50. Bxf6 d4 51. Be7 Kd3 52. Bc5 Kc4 53. Be7 Kb3 0-1 |
47. Bc8 Kf7 48. h6 a2 49. Bxe6+ Kxe6 50. h7 a1=Q 51. h8=Q and White went on to win in few more moves 1-0 |
21… Bxd5 22. exd5 Rxc2!! 23. Kxc2 Qxa2 24. f4 Rc8+ 25. Kd2 Bxf4+ 26. Ke2 Qxb2+ 27. Kf3 Rc1 0-1 |