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The John Henderson Report: Opening Ceremony 27th Feb 2000.

DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON

Chess is not the only event in town.

I'VE never been to Spain before. But I was always attracted to it by the novels of Ernest Hemingway, my favourite being his vivid description of the subtle (and not to mention downright idiotic) art of bullfighting in "Death in the Afternoon" that was made into a Hollywood film. In the book, he wrote: "Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honour".

I'd rather hoped that this would also be the case for the XVII Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez, Ciudad de Linares - the category 21 Linares supertournament to you and me, featuring six players (Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, Leko, Shirov and Khalifman) in a double round-robin.

Viswanathan Anand, Garry Kasparov and Alexander Khalifman.

Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Leko and Alexei Shirov.

Linares is not the easiest of places to get to I discovered. Leaving Edinburgh at 10.50am on Saturday, I had to change at Brussels for a flight that was scheduled to get me into Madrid for 17.25pm. After that, I had less than one hour to get from one end of the Spanish capital - and at the peak time of travel for football supporters heading for the crunch evening match of Real Madrid vs. Barcelona (won by Real 3-0) - to the other for a train at Atocha Station that would arrive at Linares/Baeza just before 22.00pm. Miss this one GM Amador Rodriguez, trainer to Peter Leko and after leaving (escaping?) Cuba now resident in Spain, informed me by email, and the next one is a cattle-wagon at 23.00pm, arriving at 02.51am - and no chance of a taxi to take me the five miles or so to the Hotel Anibal!

Just to make my task a little bit more challenging, my flight from Brussels to Madrid was delayed by just over 20-minutes (I knew I should have paid the extra £70 or so for a direct flight). After waiting another 20-minutes to collect my baggage, I was running for the nearest available taxi knocking over women, children and pensioners in the rush. Throwing the luggage into the taxi, I asked the driver how long to Atocha Station? "About 25-minutes, señor." I knew I was going to regret asking the next question, but I did anyway: "And how long if I double the fare?" With the smell of burning rubber in my nostrils, the Spanish Taxi Associations' answer to Michael Schumacher replied "15-minutes, señor". There then followed a white-knuckle ride of the Mad Max variety that made me glad I had a change of underwear.

He did his best for the double fare, but alas I arrived at the station some 5-minutes late. Still, I decided to head as quickly as possible for platform five just in case. Guess what? I literally struck it lucky with the train being nearly 40-minutes late! As the train finally arrived, I could see Vladimir Kramnik and his second, Miguel Illescas, Leko and Rodriguez, and a fellow journalist, Arvind Aaron, from the Indian newspaper "The Hindu", who had all caught the train at Barcelona. Sitting next to Arvind, I discovered that the reason for the train being late was that some poor unfortunate Spaniard committed suicide by throwing himself in front of the train! Explaining to Arvind that, while naturally feeling sorry for any distress this may have caused, I was glad that the train was delayed as I had a nightmare journey getting to Linares. It was then that he told me in graphic detail of the mother of all journeys to Linares that he had in 1998 that involved eight flights to seven different countries and lasted nearly three days! He explained that in that particular year he had left Madras at 17.00pm on Thursday, 19 February (three days before the first round), arriving in Delhi at 19.30pm and waited until 00.45am for the red-eye to Amsterdam. Arriving there at 06.30am on the Friday, immigration discovered a problem with his visa and this is where all the fun began. To his horror, they informed him that he couldn't go on any further and asked him "When would you like to back to India, sir?" Momentarily taken aback, or hero replied "As soon as possible - the plane I've just come off heads for Bombay in three hours."

With no money and unable to cash any travellers-cheques, as Immigration wouldn't give him back his passport until he boarded the plane back to Bombay, he luckily discovered that he had a valid telephone card. He finally got a hold of his Sport Editor who immediately contacted the travel agent that had dealt with all the paper work on behalf of the paper. They asked him what countries he had visas for? Being a globetrotting chess journalist, Arvind informed them America and Switzerland, to which they told him under no circumstances to board the flight to Bombay. He was then instructed by fax that he had to be prepared to fly to New York or Geneva which would then give them the time to arrange a new visa that would be delivered to either of these destinations. At 15.00pm, he was then informed that a British Airways representative would arrive soon with a ticket for London. Once there, they would give him another ticket to a yet unknown destination where he would then find his new visa. Arriving in London for the first time(!), he was handed a ticket…back to Delhi!

Arriving back in Delhi at 11.00am on the 21st (I hope you're keeping track of all this? I intend asking questions later), it was only now that he realised that his luggage had gone awol as it had been checked through to Madrid, back to Bombay and then on to London where it - surprise, surprise - had vanished. Unperturbed, our intrepid reporter (who was still wearing the clothes he left in and clutching on to his trusty laptop) found some time to buy a change of clothing before being met by a representative of the travel agent who had arranged a special weekend opening of the Dutch Embassy to issue a new visa. Realising that he now had to write a column (You've just got to admire his dedication, haven't you?), he asked if he could do it at the home of the travel agent. After writing said column (I never did ask you Arvind, but what on earth did you do it on? Around the World in 80 days?), he caught an evening flight out of Delhi for another country, this time Paris, where he caught the first flight to Madrid, arriving at 10.45am on the 22nd. Unbelievably, through this traumatic experience, he didn't suffer from jetlag once - probably due to the fact that he was never off a plane long enough! And, after a three and a half hour train journey to Linares (and still minus his luggage), Arvind's taxi dropped him off at the Hotel Anibal with impeccable timing just five-minutes before the start of the first round!

So there you have it, the scenic route to Linares via Madras-Delhi-Amsterdam-London-Delhi-Paris-Madrid! Meanwhile, his luggage, which finally arrived halfway through the tournament, went via Madras-Delhi-Amsterdam-Madrid-London-Bombay-Amsterdam-Madrid-Malaga, where a taxi was arranged to take it Linares. Of course, the story has a happy ending. Arvind was able to report daily in "The Hindu" for the insatiable Indian chess fans on one of Vishy Anand's memorable tournament victories when the Indian ace won ahead of Shirov, Kramnik, Kasparov, Svidler, Ivanchuk and Topalov.

Arvind's story seemed to whittle away most of the journey to Linares\Baeza, from where a 10 minute or so taxi journey took us to our own particular bullring, the Hotel Anibal, where over the next two weeks we would see the battle to the death between four chess matadors, Anand, Kramnik, Shirov, and Leko, one novillero, Khalifman, and one particularly angry bull in the shape and form of Garry Kasparov.

The next morning I bumped into Kasparov during breakfast and after exchanging greetings, I relayed the gory details of the suicide that luckily delayed my train. "Bad omen! Bad omen!," he muttered, not wishing to hear any more over the breakfast table. And with that, it was time to get the show on the road with the five-minute walk to the local town hall in brilliant sunshine for the drawing of lots.

Kasparov signs autographs.

It just goes to show that chess has become part of the everyday life for the inhabitants of the little Spanish mining town of Linares when on the way to the opening ceremony Kasparov was stopped by two young kids on the street and asked for his autograph, which he duly obliged. In a plush ceremony, one of the highlights being an award presented to the former patron of the tournament, the legendary Luis Rentero, who thankfully seems to have made a full recover from his near fatal car crash in 1998.

Luis Rentero received an award from the organisers.

The tournament was now run and sponsored by the local town council alongside four other sponsors, the main one being the Spanish telecom company, Telefonica. Before the drawing of the lots, there was genuine emotion at the ceremony when Rentero was presented by a gold medal and civic award from the Linares mayor, Juan Fernandez, for the work Rentero had put into the tournament in the past that firmly placed Linares on the map.

Linares 2000: Shirov, Kramnik, Kasparov, Leko, Anand, [Rentero], Khalifman.

As the drawing of the lots took place, the players where called up to the stage in alphabetical order to select one of six mobile phones, underneath which was there lot number. Anand first, was number four; Kasparov second, number two; Khalifman third, number one; Kramnik fourth, number six; Leko fifth, number three; and Shirov last, number five. Ceremony over, it was back to the Hotel Aninal where a special celebratory lunch had been organised in honour of Rentero.

The players drew mobile phones for their numbers. [3rd up Khalifman draws 1 and a meeting with Kramnik]

Later in the evening, I managed to persuade Vishy Anand to do an interview for TWIC readers, discussing issues like his present form and standing in the world rankings, his hope for a title match this year against Kasparov.

John Henderson's TWIC interview with Anand

Pairings (confirmed)
Game start at 14-00 GMT 15-00 local time.

Round 1 (February 28, 2000)

Kasparov, Gary        -  Shirov, Alexei
Khalifman, Alexander  -  Kramnik, Vladimir
Leko, Peter           -  Anand, Viswanathan

Round 2 (February 29, 2000)

Khalifman, Alexander  -  Kasparov, Gary
Kramnik, Vladimir     -  Anand, Viswanathan
Shirov, Alexei        -  Leko, Peter

Round 3 (March 1, 2000)

Anand, Viswanathan    -  Shirov, Alexei
Kasparov, Gary        -  Kramnik, Vladimir
Leko, Peter           -  Khalifman, Alexander

Round 4 (March 3, 2000)

Anand, Viswanathan    -  Kasparov, Gary
Leko, Peter           -  Kramnik, Vladimir
Shirov, Alexei        -  Khalifman, Alexander

Round 5 (March 4, 2000)

Kasparov, Gary        -  Leko, Peter
Khalifman, Alexander  -  Anand, Viswanathan
Kramnik, Vladimir     -  Shirov, Alexei

Round 6 (March 5, 2000)

Anand, Viswanathan    -  Leko, Peter
Kramnik, Vladimir     -  Khalifman, Alexander
Shirov, Alexei        -  Kasparov, Gary

Round 7 (March 7, 2000)

Anand, Viswanathan    -  Kramnik, Vladimir
Kasparov, Gary        -  Khalifman, Alexander
Leko, Peter           -  Shirov, Alexei

Round 8 (March 8, 2000)

Khalifman, Alexander  -  Leko, Peter
Kramnik, Vladimir     -  Kasparov, Gary
Shirov, Alexei        -  Anand, Viswanathan

Round 9 (March 9, 2000)

Anand, Viswanathan    -  Khalifman, Alexander
Leko, Peter           -  Kasparov, Gary
Shirov, Alexei        -  Kramnik, Vladimir

Round 10 (March 10, 2000)

Kasparov, Gary        -  Anand, Viswanathan
Khalifman, Alexander  -  Shirov, Alexei
Kramnik, Vladimir     -  Leko, Peter