Grandmaster Peter Leko of Hungary, who missed becoming the classical world champion by a whisker less than a year and a half ago, leads the 23rd Ciudad de Linares chess tournament at the half way point after drawing his game with FIDE champion Veselin Topalov in 41 moves today in Morelia, Michoacan near the Pacific coast of Mexico.
In seven games, Leko has won three and drawn four for 5 points. A player is awarded a full point for each victory while draws are worth a half point each.
It has been a disappointing tournament for Topalov, who has only one win against three losses and three draws. Topalov finished second in last year's Linares tournament to former world champion Garry Kasparov, who announced his retirement from competitive chess immediately following the conclusion of the event. Topalov continued to dominate international chess for the remainder of 2005, including a runaway first-place finish in San Luis, Argentina, in October in a very strong tournament for the title of FIDE champion. Topalov also tied for first place at the annual tournament in the Dutch resort of Wijk aan Zee last month with Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand.
In other games today, Spanish grandmaster Francisco Vallejo drew against Ukraine's Vassily Ivanchuk; Russian Peter Svidler halted a two-game losing streak with a draw against 18-year-old Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan; and Levon Aronian of Armenia defeated French grandmaster Etienne Bacrot in an exciting 55-move
game.
In the Bacrot-Aronian game, the players fought to an ending where White (Bacrot) had a Rook, a Bishop, a Knight and a single Pawn against a Rook and four Pawns for Black. However, three of Black's Pawns were far advanced making the game winnable in spite of the material deficit. In what may have been a blunder, Bacrot exchanged his Rook and Bishop for Aronian's remaining Rook; both players promoted a Pawn to a Queen on Black's 49th and White's 50th move. This left White with a Knight and a Queen against Black's Queen and three Pawns. However, two of those Pawns were still far advanced and Bacrot was unable to stop one of them from reaching the seventh rank. When the promotion of that Pawn to a second Black Queen proved inevitable, Bacrot resigned.
With his victory today, Aronian takes over second place with 4½ points (three wins, one loss and three draws). Svidler is in third place with 4 points (three wins, two losses and two draws).
This year, the first half of the tournament was played in Morelia. The players now break until March 3, when the action resumes in the traditional home of the annual event, the Andalusian town of Linares.
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