Linares 1995 (1996)

[Stephen Saunders]

I generally don't follow chess politics, but I'd be interested to know if anybody has an insight as to why Kasparov apparently decided to boycott Linares 1995 after agreeing to play in it, and why there was no GM tournament in 1996? I assume it's connected to the FIDE v PCA shenanigans going on at that time, but it seems a little strange even so.

[Patrick McGovern]

No Linares super tournament took place in 1996, because Rentero (The grocery stores’ tycoon Luis Rentero Suárez and tournament sponsor) had been involved in the world championship match between Zsuzsa Polgar and Xie Jun. I suspect he did not play in 95 due to his (Kasparov's) embarrassment at his "take back" move against Judit Polgar in the 94 tournament.

[Stephen Saunders]

Thanks, Patrick. That makes sense.

Given that Rentero always aimed for the highest category, it's fascinating to see how (relatively) quickly the personnel changed in the 1990s. 1995 was Nigel Short's last appearance there, and 1992 was Jon Speelman's.

[Colin Patterson]

That's certainly possible of course, but officially, these were the times of the two opposed governing bodies ... FIDE and the PCA. Naturally, Kasparov had to support his own organisation and so declared that he would only play PCA events in 1995, with the exception of the VSB, which he had already committed to. The PCA events were at Riga and Novgorod, where he won, and at Horgen where he could only manage fifth. Horgen followed his world championship match with Anand though, so he was probably somewhat too relaxed after successfully defending his title.