LINARES
A city in the centre of Spain where one of the strongest tournaments of the year is organised, in the famous Hotel Annibal and in the town hall under the supervision of its owner Luis Rentero, who was also the tournament director for many years. In 1998, the format of the tournament changed from a single round-robin tournament to a double round-robin event.
Garry Kasparov has won nine times the event. The strongest tournament was organized in 2010 with a category 21 and an average of 2758 without Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand or Vladimir Kramnik. In 1994, Karpov made his best ever chess and rating performance reaching an ELO of 3000! Other events were also organised in Linares like in 1992 the Candidate Semifinal Matches Karpov-Short 4-6 and Yussupov-Timman 4-6; in 1994 the PCA Candidate Semifinal Matches Anand-Adams 5½-1½ and Kamsky-Short 5½-1½, and in 1997, Zsuzsa Polgar defeated Xie Jun for the Women’s World Chess Championship title. The winners of the main tournaments were: 1978 Jaan Eslon, 1979 Larry Christiansen, 1981 Anatoly Karpov, 1983 Boris Spassky, 1985 Lubomir Ljubojevic, 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 Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov, 2001 Garry Kasparov, 2002 Garry Kasparov, 2003 Peter Leko, 2004 Vladimir Kramnik 2005 Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov, 2006 Levon Aronian, 2007 Viswanathan Anand, 2008 Viswanathan Anand, 2009 Alexander Grischuk, 2010 Veselin Topalov.
