The 11th Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez "Ciudad de Linares" took place in February/March under the direction of Luis Rentero Suarez. The players were: World Champion Garry Kasparov (Elo ranked #1 in the world), Anatoly Karpov (#2), Vassily Ivanchuk (#3), Viswanathan Anand (#4), Boris Gelfand (#5), the 17 years old Vladimir Kramnik (#6), Alexey Shirov (#7), Evgeny Bareev (#8), Valery Salov (#10), 18-year-old Gata Kamsky (#12), Artur Yusupov (#15), Jan Timman (#18), Alexander Beliavsky (#43), and Ljubomir Ljubojevic (#50). Of the top ten ranked players in the world, only Kiril Georgiev (#9) was missing. Nigel Short (#13), who had just won the Short - Timman Candidates Final (1993) in El Escorial, Spain, said he would not take part in this "Russian Championship". Rentero then asked the Linares Council to choose between Ljubojevic (who lived in Linares) and Miguel Illescas Cordoba (#40), and they picked the former. The field assembled was considered the strongest ever for an international tournament. Sponsors were Match and Philips.

Round 1 started on 23 February at 3 pm. Kasparov had the flu and Karpov suffered from tonsillitis, and their games against Ljubojevic and Salov were postponed by two days. The patients were still "wobbly" in Round 2, when Kasparov signed a quick draw with Ivanchuk and Karpov lost to Timman. In Round 3, Kasparov was busy because in addition to his 118-move draw with Yusupov, he and Short (who was on vacation in Greece) announced this day (26 February) that they had turned down FIDE's offer of venue and prizes and would play their world championship match outside of FIDE. They also made known the formation of the Professional Chess Association (PCA), who would open a new deadline for nominations to choose the venue and sponsorship of the duel between the two. After Round 4, Rentero fined Shirov, Ivanchuk and Kramnik with 100,000 pesetas each for "lack of combativeness" and offering draw before move 40. There were discussions afterwards whether the games were actually "dead drawn" or not.

At the start of Round 6, Salov refused to shake hands with Kasparov. Salov resided in Linares where he was hired to run a chess school that never started up because of a mixture of negligence and economic problems of the City Council. After the tournament he moved to Madrid. His game with Kasparov was a draw, while Karpov beat Gelfand. Kasparov and Karpov were neck and neck until Kasparov beat Karpov in Round 10 (Karpov vs Kasparov, 1993). Karpov was practically lost after 14.f4. This game was played on the 50th birthday of Robert James Fischer, who celebrated in Belgrade, together with Zita Rajcsanyi and Miguel A Quinteros. Kasparov eventually won the tournament, undefeated. Anand scored the same number of points as Karpov, but was third on tiebreak. The 5th place by 17-year-old debutant Kramnik also boded well for the future. The brilliancy prize went to Anand, for Gelfand vs Anand, 1993. Timman was asked after the tournament who he thought would be the title contender in 1996. He said, "Maybe Anand, if he works seriously".

Hotel Anibal, Linares, Spain, 23 February - 14 March 1993

              Age Elo   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4
 1 Kasparov    29 2805  * 1 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 10
 2 Karpov      41 2725  0 * ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 0 1 1  8½
 3 Anand       23 2710  0 ½ * ½ ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 ½ 1 1 1  8½
 4 Shirov      20 2670  ½ ½ ½ * 1 0 ½ 0 1 1 ½ ½ 1 1  8
 5 Kramnik     17 2685  ½ ½ ½ 0 * 0 1 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½  7½
 6 Salov       28 2660  ½ 0 ½ 1 1 * 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 0  6½
 7 Ivanchuk    23 2710  ½ ½ 0 ½ 0 1 * 0 0 1 ½ 1 1 ½  6½
 8 Beliavsky   39 2610  ½ 0 1 1 0 ½ 1 * 0 0 ½ 1 ½ 0  6
 9 Kamsky      18 2655  0 0 0 0 0 ½ 1 1 * ½ 1 1 0 ½  5½
10 Bareev      26 2670  0 ½ 0 0 ½ 0 0 1 ½ * ½ 1 ½ 1  5½
11 Yusupov     33 2645  ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ * 0 ½ ½  5
12 Timman      41 2635  0 1 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 0 0 0 1 * ½ 1  5
13 Gelfand     24 2690  0 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ * 1  4½
14 Ljubojevic  42 2605  0 0 0 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 *  4

Nine days after the event, on 23 March, FIDE announced that Kasparov and Short had been stripped of their titles as champion and challenger, and that the match for the title would be contested by Timman and Anatoly Karpov. The Karpov - Timman FIDE World Championship Match (1993) was played in September. At the same time but under the auspices of the PCA, Kasparov and Short played their Kasparov - Short PCA World Championship Match (1993). The PCA split from FIDE was not fully healed until 2006.

Sources

FIDE rating list January 1993 (http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo199...)
Ocho x Ocho 133 (April 1993), pp. 4-9 (https://www.scribd.com/document/730...)
Ocho x Ocho 134 (May 1993), pp. 4-23 (https://www.scribd.com/document/730...)
Tidskrift för Schack, April 1993, pp. 168-177 (http://www.schack.se/tfsarkiv/histo...)
Leontxo García in Jaque 350 (March 1993), pp. 4-48 (http://www.bartelski.pl/olimpbase/l...)
Robert Byrne in New York Times, 23 March 1993 (https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/23/...)
The Big Book of World Chess Championships by Andre Schulz. New In Chess, Alkmaar 2016 (https://books.google.no/books?id=4N...)

Previous event: Linares (1992). Next: Linares (1994)

Original collections: Game Collection: Linares 1993 by User: suenteus po 147 and Game Collection: Linares 1993 by User: Tabanus. Round dates: February 23, 24, 26, 27, March 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14. Two Round 1 games were played 25 February (from Jaque).