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Anand Wins Linares-Morelia Print E-mail
By Jennifer Shahade   
March 7, 2008
Anandfinallead.jpg
Anand in Linares 08. Photo Cathy Rogers
Linares-Morelia concluded with an all drawn last round, allowing Vishy Anand to coast into first place with 8.5/14. Magnus Carlsen was right behind with 8/14. Topalov played a sharp opening against Anand, but defeating a draw determined Anand with Black was too tall an order, and yesterday's article predicting an exciting battle turned out to be wishful thinking. As Greg Shahade said, "Topalov knows he isn't superman."

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Carlsen had a chance to catch up to Anand with a last round win against Radjabov. For almost 30 moves, the Norweigian teenager tried to squeeze a dry pawn up rook endgame, but unsurprisingly he failed. If only Radjabov morphed for a dozen moves into an 1800-player, he may have had a shot. Even if Carlsen had won, he would have lost the title to Anand on tiebreak.

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The majority of Morelia-Linares excitement went down in the first half of the event: the tournament will definitely be remembered for its bloody Mexican half.


Linares-Morelia
Final Standings

1. Viswanathan Anand 8.5
2. Magnus Carlsen 8.0
3-4. Levon Aronian, Veselin Topalov 7.5
5.Teimour Radjabov 7.0
6. Vassily Ivanchuk 6.5
7-8. Alexei Shirov, Peter Leko 5.5

Read CLO's prior coverage of Morelia-Linares, including predictions by major American chess personalities, an opening Linares blog by GM Ian Rogers, a second blog by Ian, "The Draw Makes a Comeback in Linares" and Macauley Peterson's recap at the half.  You can also watch Macauley's ICC videos here.
 
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