The tournament in Wijk aan See is over. No sensations

All participants can be divided into cats and mice, and the cats won easily. Kasparov is very strong. +5 is a brilliant result, even though it is weaker than his own achievements of past years. Kasparov won this event for the third time in succession, so the question who is the World Champion now is almost senseless. Among the cats he is no less than a lion or a tiger.

The FIDE World Champion V. Anand is half-point behind the winner. Nobody could have foreseen such a final spurt: +4 is an excellent result.

One more World Champion, V. Kramnik, shared third place with V. Ivanchuk. So all our champions performed well.

What about the others? The bright fire-ball of the chess world, A. Morozevich, had a chance to become the leader but failed. Shirov’s final games were much tougher than his start, he lost many points and shared the 5-7 place with Adams and Morozevich.

No sensations to speak about. The mice brought as many gifts to the leaders as they could. The conclusion is self-evident. Kasparov should not be allowed to compete with people. His defeat in that match with computer was fixed. He lost to Kramnik because it was his whim.

Perhaps Gelfand, Gurevich, Bareev or Khalifman could have played at the tournament in Wijk aan See better than some of its actual participants, but… perhaps the organisators had some reasons for their choice of players. Is the war at the top of the chess Olympus still going on? However that may be, we hope for a soon peace. Both Kramnik and Anand are peaceful cats, even though at the chess board they are almost as dangerous as Kasparov.

Now about the lower part of the table. Leko showed a neutral result with 50% of the possible score. Topalov had a hard time but managed not to disgrace himself absolutely. Other grandmasters looked most poor at this festival of ELO favourites though they are well known strong professionals. In opens they can afford risky and questionable lines and always keep chances to win any position, but top grandmasters would not allow them even to complete development if they attempted to play with them in this style. Perhaps this is why we have not seen at this tournament Fiodorov’s favourite King’s Gambit. The losers were doomed from the very beginning.

Genrikh Chepukaitis