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TOURNAMENT STANDINGS
Morelia-Linares Tournament
Viswanathan Anand8.5/14(+4 -1 =9)[games]
Magnus Carlsen7.5/14(+4 -3 =7)[games]
Alexander Morozevich7.5/14(+4 -3 =7)[games]
Levon Aronian7/14(+1 -1 =12)[games]
Peter Svidler7/14(+1 -1 =12)[games]
Vasyl Ivanchuk6.5/14(+2 -3 =9)[games]
Veselin Topalov6/14(+1 -3 =10)[games]
Peter Leko6/14(+1 -3 =10)[games]
*

Chessgames.com Chess Event Description
Morelia-Linares (2007)

The 24th edition of the Linares tournament was held in two different countries (for the second time), with the first half in Morelia, Mexico (February) and the second half in Linares, Spain (March). The participants were: Veselin Topalov (Elo ranked #1 in the world), Viswanathan Anand (#2), Vassily Ivanchuk (#5), Peter Leko (#6), Levon Aronian (#7), Alexander Morozevich (#8), Peter Svidler (#12) and the prodigy Magnus Carlsen (#24). The most notable absentees were World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (#3) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (#4). Teimour Radjabov (#11) was scheduled to participate, but had to withdraw because of an upsetting burglery in his hotel room. Ivanchuk, who had been invited to give a simul and take part in some other events, was in town and agreed to jump in at short notice. He picked IM Manuel Leon Hoyos as his second. The opening ceremony was held 16 February at the playing venue Theatro de Campo. Games started the next day at 3:30 pm local time. Time control: 2 hours 40 moves + 1 hour 20 moves + 30 minutes.

Leaving for Linares, Anand and Carlsen shared the lead with 4.5/7. Anand stated it was hard to imagine Carlsen would not become World Champion one day. In Linares, Carlsen's father returned home, and was replaced by Peter Heine Nielsen. In the end, Anand won by a whole point, while Carlsen took second place based on his win against Morozevich in Round 1. The prodigy had arrived at the top of the tables.

Morelia, Mexico (17-25 Feb) and Linares, Spain (2-10 March)

            Age Elo   01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08
1 Anand      37 2779  ** 11 1½ 0½ ½½ ½½ ½½ 1½  8½
2 Carlsen    16 2690  00 ** 1½ ½½ ½½ 11 1½ ½0  7½
3 Morozevich 29 2741  0½ 0½ ** ½½ ½1 ½1 01 ½1  7½
4 Aronian    24 2744  1½ ½½ ½½ ** ½½ 0½ ½½ ½½  7
5 Svidler    30 2728  ½½ ½½ ½0 ½½ ** ½½ ½½ ½1  7
6 Ivanchuk   37 2750  ½½ 00 ½0 1½ ½½ ** 1½ ½½  6½
7 Topalov    31 2783  ½½ 0½ 10 ½½ ½½ 0½ ** ½½  6
8 Leko       27 2749  0½ ½1 ½0 ½½ ½0 ½½ ½½ **  6
Category: XX (2746). Arbiters: Juan Vargas Sánchez and Faik Gasanov.

The 2nd Morelia Open was played 15-18 February. It was won by Vadim Markovich Milov (6/7) ahead of Ivan Cheparinov (also 6/7).

Sources

Spanish ChessBase, 17/02/2007 (https://es.chessbase.com/post/morel...)
ChessBase, 2/16/2007 (https://en.chessbase.com/post/teimo...)
ChessBase, 2/26/2007 (https://en.chessbase.com/post/morel...)
ChessBase, 3/10/2007 (https://en.chessbase.com/post/linar...)
FIDE rating list January 2007 (http://fidelists.blogspot.com/2008/...)
Ian Rogers in Tidskrift för Schack, 3/2007, pp. 4-16 (http://www.schack.se/tfsarkiv/histo...)
Dylan McClain in New York Times, 4 March 2007 (https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/...)
Henrik Carlsen in Norsk Sjakkblad, 2/2007, pp. 10-17 (http://www.sjakk.no/filarkiv/nsf/no...)
Raul Ocampo Vargas at Chess Coach, 12 March 2007 (http://chesscom-chesscoach.blogspot...)
Various authors in Peón de Rey, No. 65 (April 2007), pp. 5-31 (https://e-nautia.com/santiago/disk/...)

Round dates: February 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25 in Morelia; March 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 in Linares (from ChessBase).

Previous: Morelia-Linares (2006). Next: Morelia-Linares (2008)

 page 1 of 3; games 1-25 of 56  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. Ivanchuk vs Leko ½-½272007Morelia-LinaresC45 Scotch Game
2. Svidler vs Aronian ½-½382007Morelia-LinaresC89 Ruy Lopez, Marshall
3. Carlsen vs Morozevich 1-0682007Morelia-LinaresE66 King's Indian, Fianchetto, Yugoslav Panno
4. Topalov vs Anand ½-½292007Morelia-LinaresE15 Queen's Indian
5. Leko vs Morozevich ½-½412007Morelia-LinaresC12 French, McCutcheon
6. Anand vs Svidler ½-½472007Morelia-LinaresC84 Ruy Lopez, Closed
7. Ivanchuk vs Topalov 1-0412007Morelia-LinaresB90 Sicilian, Najdorf
8. Aronian vs Carlsen ½-½312007Morelia-LinaresE04 Catalan, Open, 5.Nf3
9. Svidler vs Ivanchuk ½-½532007Morelia-LinaresC42 Petrov Defense
10. Morozevich vs Aronian ½-½432007Morelia-LinaresD38 Queen's Gambit Declined, Ragozin Variation
11. Topalov vs Leko ½-½392007Morelia-LinaresE15 Queen's Indian
12. Carlsen vs Anand 0-1402007Morelia-LinaresD47 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
13. Ivanchuk vs Carlsen 0-1602007Morelia-LinaresA46 Queen's Pawn Game
14. Anand vs Morozevich 1-0592007Morelia-LinaresC95 Ruy Lopez, Closed, Breyer
15. Topalov vs Svidler ½-½292007Morelia-LinaresA15 English
16. Leko vs Aronian ½-½462007Morelia-LinaresE10 Queen's Pawn Game
17. Aronian vs Anand 1-0482007Morelia-LinaresD11 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
18. Svidler vs Leko ½-½272007Morelia-LinaresC89 Ruy Lopez, Marshall
19. Morozevich vs Ivanchuk ½-½322007Morelia-LinaresC67 Ruy Lopez
20. Carlsen vs Topalov 1-0642007Morelia-LinaresD45 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
21. Anand vs Ivanchuk ½-½322007Morelia-LinaresB90 Sicilian, Najdorf
22. Morozevich vs Svidler ½-½162007Morelia-LinaresA28 English
23. Aronian vs Topalov ½-½222007Morelia-LinaresD11 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
24. Carlsen vs Leko ½-½202007Morelia-LinaresD45 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
25. Ivanchuk vs Aronian 1-0492007Morelia-LinaresD38 Queen's Gambit Declined, Ragozin Variation
 page 1 of 3; games 1-25 of 56  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 287 OF 287 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Mar-14-07  slomarko: May i ask again at what time controls will this Fritz-Ryba match be?
Mar-14-07  TheGladiator: <TheGladiator: I wasn't referring to Deep Blue anymore in the quote above; I was talking about faster CPUs on (basically) the same architecture.>

<zarg: OK, but context of this discussion, was comparing current desktop CPU with Deep Blue hardware. Anyway, even when comparing different models of the same CPU family, care must be taken, benchmarking is better than looking at just the clock speed.>

Just for reference, here is what I responded to when I gave that 40x comment:

<zarg: Rybka running on a laptop, has a great chess playing strength too, the main reason for this is not 2-4 GHz CPUs, but the improved algorithms, e.g. better evaluating function, used today.>

And then I suggested the comparison:

<Regarding the quote above, I'm not sure that the most important difference in playing strength between a current Rybka/Fritz 10 on current hardware with 1 GB ram, 2-4Ghz CPU and higher bus bandwidth and e.g. fritz 8 on say a Pentium 133Mhz box w/64Mb ram actually is the heuristic algorithms. Intuitively, based on general knowledge of computer chess and the importance of seeing some plies deeper on average, I think a major part of the increase in playing strength is due to the increase in "brute force elements" of the hardware.

Of course I know that even 40x increase (100Mhz vs 4Ghz) in clock speed doesn't amount to very much deeper searches on average (due to the exponentially increasing number of nodes to search), but I still think this is a major factor in the improvement of the chess programs.>

The 40x referred to the difference between a 133Mhz pentium and a ca. 4 GHz Pentium 4 - I rounded one down and one up, just to get a "pretty" number.

From my previous comments, it should be pretty clear that I know that general benchmarking needs to take more into account than just raw clock frequency (e.g. bus bandwidth, speed of memory, CPU caches, other architectural choices, etc.), games or other graphical applications (like CADs, Mathematica and such) are bound by GPU(s), on-board memory, bus bandwidth and PC RAM, IO-intensive work is mostly bound by stuff like storage-solutions (disks, RAIDs, NAS/SAN, etc) and communication infrastructure, but also by OS; there are for instance huge differences in the time various *nixes need to create, copy and delete files, even when low-level IO-scheduling is tuned for maximum performance for a given purpose. Lately, I've worked professionally with performance issues related to IO on both Windows platforms and Linux, Solaris (SPARC and x86), AIX and HP-UX (both PA-RISC and Itanium).

While you can assume that your particular interests in computing provide for some knowledge that I don't have, I'd appreciate it if you also would assume that I have a satisfactory working knowledge of most issues a senior software engineer with several years of experience in different domains is supposed to cope with.

Mar-14-07  TheGladiator: <zarg: Which year did Fritz 8 arrive? Then I suggest you run Rybka on hardware available at that point.>

I hope you understand that I won't purchase any new hardware to make this test - I'll run it on some of the boxes I've got access to, period. My purpose wasn't to check who "work faster", the hardware engineers or the chess engine programmers. It was to check "improved algorithms" versus "faster CPU", inspired by your comment <the main reason for this is not 2-4 GHz CPUs, but the improved algorithms>. Since I can't run a program with worse heuristics (e.g. Fritz 8) on something 10-20 times faster than a 2-3 GHz machine, I had to propose the opposite. How much slower, is a parameter we can adjust (to some degree) - it's not really about "winning a bet".

<<Wasn't Pentium 2 (first time around) 166/200/233 Mhz?>

IIRC, the slowest Pentium 2 ran at 233 Mhz, you might be thinking of Pentium Pro.>

Actually, I was thinking of Pentium MMX, introduced in 1997.

<Pentium 133 MHz sound like 1995 hardware. :)>

And this is indeed the case :)

<because MMX instructions was not available before Pentium Pro (AFAIK). I don't know if Rybka uses such speedup trick though.>

I've got a 166Mhz Pentium MMX in the attic, so it was indeed available before Pentium Pro. I have no idea if Rybka uses MMX instructions, but I thought MMX was mainly geared at improving multimedia performance?

Mar-14-07  AAAAron: So after Linares, what's the next big super tournament? Will Toppy get his rematch against Drawnik any time soon?
Mar-14-07  TheGladiator: <zarg: benchmarking is better than looking at just the clock speed.>

It just occured to me that you might were thinking of specialized chess engine benchmarks (like fritzmark) here...?

Mar-14-07  slomarko: <Will Toppy get his rematch against Drawnik any time soon?> i dont think so, Kramnik speciality is... avoiding the matches.
Mar-14-07  zarg: <TheGladiator: <zarg: benchmarking is better than looking at just the clock speed.> It just occured to me that you might were thinking of specialized chess engine benchmarks (like fritzmark) here...?>

Yes, for example Fritz Chess Bechmark is highly relevant. Some figures are given here:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...

where we see that P4 2.6 GHz has relative speed of only 1.51 (vs P3 1.0 GHz).

Mar-14-07  zarg: <TheGladiator: I thought MMX was mainly geared at improving multimedia performance?>

I'm not up to date with the recent Intel Optimizing manuals, but when MMX came out.. it looked very interesting for general-purpose optimizing of inner loops too, as long as you didn't need to access the floating-point unit.

MMX had 8x 64-bit registers, with very fast instruction set.

Mar-14-07  zarg: <TheGladiator: I have a satisfactory working knowledge of most issues a senior software engineer with several years of experience in different domains is supposed to cope with.>

The initial response to <demondays> looked very odd, for someone with expert knowlege. Your advice, on looking up clock speed and number of CPUs of home PC's today, gave the wrong impression.

However, I don't think <demondays> was right, when he said Rybka would at best be equal to Deep Blue. In fact, I would not be surprised if Rybka on a home PC today, smoked Deep Blue anno 97 in a chess match.

The main reason for this, is not the advance in HW, but rather the advance in software.

Mar-15-07  TheGladiator: <zarg: where we see that P4 2.6 GHz has relative speed of only 1.51 (vs P3 1.0 GHz).>

Actually, this isn't very surprising and not something one would not anticipate. But one could also say that a 2,5x faster CPU giving a 1,5x higher fritzmark (where I think nodes searched is an important marker) shows that the fritzmark number increases much faster than "playing strength".

<The initial response to <demondays> looked very odd, for someone with expert knowlege. Your advice, on looking up clock speed and number of CPUs of home PC's today, gave the wrong impression.>

I didn't write any technical response to <demondays> - regarding home PCs I thought he'd might be surprised how much faster and more advanced PCs had become since the construction of Deep Blue started. But I probably misunderstood his use of the word "engines", where I thought he might referred to full blown (software) chess engines.

Therefore I told about the custom hardware in Deep Blue (probably exactly what he meant by "engines", coined "chess processors" somewhere) and the most important things it did (for instance move generation and heuristic calculations/algorithms). A point to me, was that these engines weren't complete chess engines, but rather helper chips (like math coprocessors) where the most repeated operations in a chess engine were programmed in hardware, not software.

But (hopefully) unlike a PC chess program that goes to market, the central software in Deep Blue wasn't complete or tested enough at the time of the match, so that they actually during the match (between games) had to work on correcting pure technical software bugs which was discovered during play. So Kasparov kind of played alpha software which in some cases even prevented "normal operation" of Deep Blue - a fact that I also found worth mentioning. Of course, Kasparov thought they "adjusted Deep Blue to fit his style of play" ;) Without improving heuristics, just by removing software bugs to make it work like intended, Deep Blue might have been even stronger than it was.

<The main reason for [Rybka beating Deep Blue], is not the advance in HW, but rather the advance in software.>

I still would like to do a comparison like the one I mentioned - increasing CPU speed by 2,5 times is one thing, increasing it by 20-30 times (together with other advances in hardware) sure amount to something, particularily in computer vs computer matches where a difference in horizon of 3-5 plies might actually mean something (and more than in a match against a top human player, where sometimes the human understanding (which heuristics try to immitate) is superior to the computer's basic brute force approach).

So, how much "faster" does a computer need to be to make up for the advance in heuristics between ca. 2001 (fritz 8) and ca. 2006 (the first commercial Rybka)? This amounted to about 200 rating points in the computer rating list I referred to.

Mar-15-07  zarg: <TheGladiator: I still would like to do a comparison like the one I mentioned - increasing CPU speed by 2,5 times is one thing, increasing it by 20-30 times (together with other advances in hardware) sure amount to something,>

I would love it, if you took the time to run some tests on this! I fully agree that we talk about a very significant HW speedup.

IMO, if using Pentium 2 (166 MHz) and a Pentium 4 (3 GHz) as the test machines, the Fritz 8 vs Rybka match is not as interesting as Fritz 5 vs Rybka match would be.

My gut feeling is that Fritz 8 would have no problems winning, while we would see a more close fight if Fritz 5 is used.

If Fritz/Rybka has been highly tuned, a severe penalty my result when running the engine on a very new/old CPU. The cost-benefit of using memory has changed quite a lot, while numbers of transistors follow Moore’s law, the RAM speed increase only ca. 5% per year. This affect the design of hash tables and the importance of avoiding cache misses.

Mar-15-07  Ragh: Fritz vs Rybka matchup is being played by some users here on CG. Check out the The Kibitzer's Café.

<Chessgames.com Members vs Machines Invitational> <Round 3, Saturday March 17, 13:00 EST (17:00 GMT)>

Mar-15-07  AAAAron: So what's the next big tournament, and who's going to be in it? <Anyone>?
Apr-13-07  alphastrike20: <fromoort> He took the fide world title. BUT NOT THE CLASSICAL TITLE. HE DID NOT BEAT KASPAROV. WHO WAS UNDOUBTABLY NUMBER ONE.
Apr-13-07  fromoort: <alphastrike20>ok.
Jun-26-07  square dance: <Regarding "strong/weak" Linares, I had to go all the way back to 2006 to find something nearly as weak as the 2007 tournament...> this whole argument is a strawman because i never argued that linares 2007 had a weak lineup. what ive been arguing this whole time is that the first and third favorites finished last and you continually fail to demonstrate where that has ever happened before. quit changing the subject. your ratings based arguments are irrelevant. is ivanchuk definitively stronger now than he was when the april rating list came out? would adding ivanchuk to a tournament now instead of in march make the tournament stronger? did topalov and kramnik clearly get worse from april to july as demonstrated by their loss of three elo points? <In 12 games, Kasparov only managed to win one game, against Vallejo, in a field where Kasparov outrated everyone but Kramnik with 100-170 points,> i dont care if kasparov underperformed by X number of points; he finished tied for 2nd, not tied for last! i dont even see how you think you're making a point for your argument. hmmm, +1 and finished =2nd, but did much worse than was statistically expected based on his previous tournament and match results, or -2 and =last. also did much worse than expected based on his previous match/tournament results, but within the normal range. i dont know. i would probably think the +1, =2nd score was a better showing for the worlds #1 player.

<Was it excellent of Kasparov to score half a point more than 16-17 year old Radjabov rated 175 points below him?> no. who said it was? what could this possibly have to do with anything?

<I'd say 2004 was about as below par for Kasparov as 2007 was for Topalov.> you can say this all you want, but since he also scored +1 in linares 2003 i'd say that his 2004 score wasnt such a shocker.

Jun-26-07  acirce: <<Akavall: in that tournament they were weaker players than they normally are.>

But by the same logic particularly Magnus and Morozevich, but also Svidler and Anand, were STRONGER players than they normally are, "making up" for Topalov and Leko "being weaker" than normally.>

This makes no sense and is totally illogical. Why on earth would they become stronger players "by the same logic"? Participant A and B were out of form so participant C and D must be stronger than they usually are? Bizarre. Of course there is nothing stopping the entire field from being weaker than usual.

Mar-16-08  TigerG: Where is Radjabov?
Mar-16-08  whiteshark: At this very moment ?
Mar-16-08  walker: I don't see any messages?!
Mar-16-08  Augalv: neither do I!
Dec-28-10
Premium Chessgames Member		  Penguincw: This tournament has so many drawn games.
May-15-11  csmathReloaded: Thanks to God kramnik was not invited, otherwise he would have gave us a lots of short draws.
Nov-26-11
Premium Chessgames Member		  Penguincw: 38/56 of the games are drawn. That's 67.9%. However, it is a high level of play.
Jun-12-21
Premium Chessgames Member		  perfidious: It is to Morozevich's credit that he finished with a plus score overall after going 2/7 in the first cycle.
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