Karpov in Linares 1994 – Round One

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In 1994 the lineup at the annual tournament in Linares, Spain was so strong that it was said by World Champion Garry Kasparov that the winner could consider themselves to be the world champion of tournament chess.

Perhaps Kasparov thought that he was informally creating another accolade for himself with that proclamation, but it was to be his old rival, Anaroly Karpov, with whom he had contested five matches for the world crown, who was to win.

Not only did Karpov win, but he did so with an impressive +9 score with 11/13, finishing a full 2.5 points ahead of Kasparov.

In this series we’ll take a look at the performance of Karpov in this event.

Here is Karpov’s round one win against the Frenchman Joel Lautier, with annotations by Zoltan Ribli.

Til Next Time,

Chris Wainscott