Levon Aronian wins Linares chess tournament with last-round win over Leko

[Jack Rabbit]

Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian won the 23rd annual Ciudad de Linares chess tournament in Andalusía, Spain, with a dramatic last-round victory today over Peter Leko of Hungary, who had held at least a share of the lead since the first round.

It was the second loss in a row for Leko, who is considered one of the most difficult players in the world to defeat. Yesterday, Leko lost to FIDE champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.

The victory gave Aronian 8½ points out of a possible 14 to Leko's 7½. A player is awarded a full point for each victory while draws are worth a half-point each.

The action began today with a four-way tie for first place among Aronian, Leko, Topalov and 18-year-old grandmaster Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan. Topalov drew his game with Spanish grandmaster Francisco Vallejo, who brought up the rear of the tournament with 5 points, while Radjabov drew his game with grandmaster Etienne Bacrot of France, who finished in seventh place with 6 points. Topalov and Radjabov finish the tournament tied for second with 8 points each.

The Leko-Aronian game opened with Leko, playing White, advancing his King's Pawn and Aronian responding by advancing his two spaces. The players sent the game into the tried and true Spanish Opening (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5), also called the Ruy Lopez after a sixteenth-century Spanish cleric who wrote an early treatise on chess. Black (Aronian) castled on the seventh move (after the usual 3 -- a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Be7 6 Re1 b4 7 Bb3), a maneuver which usually indicates the intention to play the Marshall Gambit (7 -- 0-0 8 c3 d5), which Leko avoided by playing 8 a4, a move favored by former world champion Garry Kasparov when faced with playing against the Marshall Gambit. The game the proceeded quietly for several moves until Aronian played the aggressive 21 --Nf4. In the position, Leko's best move appears to be 22 Bxe6, but Leko may have been playing for a win and opted to preserve his pieces on the board with the dubious 22 Ra2. Black went a Pawn up after 22 -- Qb7 23 Bf3 Qb3 24 Rc2 Nxd3 25 Qxd3 Qxc4 26 Qxc4 Bxc4 and things went downhill for Leko from there. After 34 moves, Black had two Rooks on White's home rank and it seemed that the end was near. Leko, in serious time trouble, fought on until the time check was complete after 40 moves, when each player is given an additional hour for the next twenty moves. Leko took a short time to examine the ruins of his position and resigned.



Levon Aronian
For Aronian, the first place finish at Linares, one of the most prestigious annual tournaments on the international chess tour, enhances his reputation as a rising star. The 23-year-old Armenian moved onto the list of top ten rated players last year. He won two strong tournaments at the end of last year. His finish at Linares will send him yet higher.

For Topalov, who holds the FIDE version of the world championship, the tournament was both a disappointment and a triumph. Having been the dominant figure in international chess since the retirement of Kasparov one year ago, Topalov was the pre-match betting favorite to win first prize. However, Topalov got off to a miserable start, losing two of his first three games; at the midway point of the tournament, he was near the bottom of the standings with only 2½ points (one win, three draws and three losses). However, the second half of the tournament was very different as he won three games in a row and defeated Leko to grab a share of first place in the penultimate round. Topalov finished tied for second with 8 points (five wins, three losses and six draws).

The only other game played today, which had no bearing on the tournament championship, Russian grandmaster Peter Svidler and Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine played to a draw. They finish tied for fifth place with 6½ points each.

Photo from ChessBase.com.