this year’s Linares was like a mini WCC
The exciting WCC starts in 10 days and we are about to discover who is going to be the new World Chess Champion of 2007. One more time we will turn to statistics in search of an educated guess before the start. Looking back to this year’s Linares-Morelia tournament we will find out that 5 (out of 8!) WCC players participated in the event. This is a whole mini WCC! They played a total of 20 games with each other and although they were conditioned from the current standings they are a good statistical sample of what we may expect.
The stats
Total games played: 20
Wins white: 3
Wins black: 2
Draws: 15
The initial calculation shows that the most difficult thing at this WCC will be to win. At Linares we had only 5 decisive games between the World Chess Championship participants and all of them came after long fights. Even though we have a high number of draws, they were not lacking battles. The only exception was Peter Svidler, who made several short draws, but he seemed exhausted during the whole championship. We can be sure that he will return with all his strenght for the WCC in Mexico.
Stats by WCC player
Anand Svidler draw
Anand Morozevich draw
Anand Aronian draw
Anand Leko draw
Aronian Anand 1-0
Aronian Morozevich draw
Aronian Svidler draw
Aronian Leko draw
Morozevich Svidler draw
Morozevich Leko 1-0
Morozevich Anand draw
Morozevich Aronian draw
Svidler Leko draw
Svidler Anand draw
Svidler Morozevich 0-1
Svidler Aronian draw
Leko Anand 0-1
Leko Svidler 1-0
Leko Morozevich – draw
Leko Aronian draw
Performance White:
Aronian +1
Morozevich +1
Anand +0
Leko +0
Svidler -1
Performance Black
Morozevich +1
Anand + 0
Aronian +0
Svidler -1
Leko -1
Overall:
Morozevich +2
Aronian +1
Anand +0
Leko -1
Svidler -2
Conclusion
The World Chess Championship in Mexico will have a very similar format to Linares-Morelia from this year. Besides, it will be played exactly in the same country as the first part of the February-March competition, Mexico. Everything looks very balanced and we may expect fantastic battles in Hotel Centro Historico. For the final predictions we need your help. Enter in the forum game, and if you give the best guess you will win chess software, books, and posters.
Hasta luego!
