Standings at the half way mark:
1-2. GM Magnus Carlsen (Norway 2690), GM Viswanathan Anand (India 2779) 4.5
3. GM Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine 2750) 4.0
4-5. GM Peter Svidler (Russia 2728), GM Levon Aronian (Armenia 2744) 3.5
6-7. GM Peter Leko (Hungary 2749), GM Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria 2783) 3.0
8. GM Alexander Morozevich (Russia 2741) 2.0
After this round, the players will then move on to Linares, Spain. The next round will start on March 2nd and will end on March 10. I will be doing the LIVE broadcast on ICC ChessFM for the final round on March 10.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Where is the guy which nickname starts with “a” to tell us how Topalov and Danailov invented some tool for cheeting overnight and the result is a win for Topa today?
Susan
the final round tend to be all draws.
i suggest all Topa haters to go f*** themselves right now!
What is this stupid idea to have a tourney on two different continents with a break of 5 days in the middle of it???
Well the Linares name brings tremendous prestige to Morelia. Without the Linares connection this would simply be another tournament with difficulty getting such big names to Mexico.
Also the cost of doing them together and attracting the top talent should lower the overall total cost from doing 2 separate tournaments.
First prize is $100,000 and sounds much better than 2 tournaments of $50,000 first prize each.
But how it all came about is still a mystery to me. Someone at the top in Mexico must be friends with someone at the top in Linares Spain.
It does also provide that all play all twice. with 2 separate tournaments it would be play only once and the 2 halves might not match the other half.
Hi from Spain. It is quite easy to understand how the traditional Linares Tournament became the Morelia-Linares.
It is all about money. Two years ago, Morelia offered to Linares to “share the costs” of having such a super-tournament. The idea was simple: two cities, double income, half effort to gather prices.
So Linares agreed. Linares people has got a long tradition of chess, but Linares tournament is simply too expensive and sharing it with Morelia was a feasible option.
So they just agreed.
What I don’t understand is the issue about Morozevich and Topalov. What is happening between these two?
“i suggest all Topa haters to go f*** themselves right now!”
Good luck with the world.
i think yo´re the stupid with all respects mr anonymous., It seems that u dont have a clue as to what life is about.
%5 days to rest ! is great in a tournement, specially a long one.
travelling is exciting, and to some maybe it´´s an opportunity to gather more strength or inspiration
i cant believe you asked that stupid question? whats the world coming to?!!