| Strong points: |
¡°When a player wins the most games outright in a supertournament
like Linares ¡ and still does not take first prize, it¡¯s a good bet
it is Alexey Shirov,¡± said Robert Byrne in one of his New York Times
chess columns. His ¡°exultant tactics are something to see,¡± he
added, ¡°but he diminishes his overall results by failing in positional
or defensive struggles.¡± Byrne is probably right but more to the point
is the fact that he also rated the Spanish (formerly Latvian)
grandmaster as ¡°perhaps the most imaginative player in world chess
today.¡± |
| Career highlights: |
World Junior Champion (under-16) 1988. Winner at Stockholm 1990.
Shared first place in Reykjavik 1992. First in Munich 1993, Leon 1995,
Monte Carlo 1998 and Ostrava 1998. FIDE World Championship finalist
2000. Spanish National Champion 2002. Best individual result (7/10 for a
TPR of 2865) in the 2002 Russia vs Rest of the World Match. |
| Expectations CCT 2003: |
Shirov, whose Fire on Board won praise as ¡°a classic chess book¡±
only days after it first appeared, has the ability to find incredible
resources in the most complex positions but can also short-circuit and
lose disastrously. Such short circuits, both on and off the board, have
often hampered his career, as was the case when he competed for the PCA
world title, for example. The purely off-the-board wrangles that
prevented him from playing Garry Kasparov in a final for which he had
qualified convincingly led to a lasting animosity between the fiery
Spaniard and the former world champion. No such animosity awaits Shirov
in Wijk aan Zee, however. At the annual Corus Tournament, he is
considered as a friend, one of the favourites for the first prize and a
most welcome guest. |
