Linares, one of the most prestigious chess tournaments in the world, will take place from February 18 to March 8, 2009. The entire tournament will be played in Spain and not shared with Morelia as in the past few years. Topalov has notified the organizers that he needed to withdraw due to his match with Kamsky. Anand will be the top seed in the 2009 tournament.
Here are the previous champions:
– 1978 Jaan Eslon
– 1979 Christiansen
– 1981 Karpov and Christiansen
– 1983 Spassky
– 1985 Ljubojevic and Hübner
– 1988 Timman
– 1989 Ivanchuk
– 1990 Kasparov
– 1991 Ivanchuk
– 1992 Kasparov
– 1993 Kasparov
– 1994 Karpov
– 1995 Ivanchuk
– 1997 Kasparov
– 1998 Anand
– 1999 Kasparov
– 2000 Kramnik and Kasparov
– 2001 Kasparov
– 2002 Kasparov
– 2003 Lékó and Kramnik
– 2004 Kramnik
– 2005 Topalov and Kasparov
– 2006 Aronian
– 2007 Anand
– 2008 Anand
– 2009
Topa knew that Vishy would knock his block off. He runs like a nice Bulgarian.