History of Tornament

Small wonder that a city with such a history has long attracted archeologists (incidentally, excavations have revealed that as early as the 12th and 13th century the Novgorodians played chess!). The number of nearly millenium - old Christian historical relics there is truly mind - boggling. Putting these treasures to use is inconceivable without developing the touvist industry, and a couple of years ago the Austrian firm Marco Polo built the Beresta Palace hotel there, with standards of service (and prices!) corresponding to the highest European class. But such a hotel needs wealthy foreign tourists, and this suggested to local businessmen and politicians the idea of staging a chess supertournament as an effective advertisement (as might be expected, there proved to be quite ardent chess fans among the leaders).

The Novgorodians decided to hold their tournament under the aegis of the PCA, and Gary Kasparov responded to their suggestion very promtly. An optimal formula for the contest was soon worked out: six grandmasters, each playing the others twice. Nigel Short needed no persuading to accept an invitation. But who would the others be? In March, the world champion held preliminary talks with several of the competitovs at the Linares tournament. Gata Kamsky and Alexey Shirov accepted at once, soon followed by Vasily Ivanchuk. Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik seemed disinclined to participate, citing the upcoming Candidates' Matches, but added that their refusal was not final and that everything depended on the outcome of those matches. Kasparov did not speak to Karpov. But some time later the Novgorodians looked up the exchampion in Moscow. However, all the efforts of their impressive delegation were to no avail: Karpov would not accept the invitation. Five slots now appeared filled, but suddenly - literally at the last moment - Kamsky upset all the arrangements! To be sure, his unexpected flimsy excuse (a supposedly incorrectly computed PCA rating) could be attributed to fatigue after his match with Anand. But was that all? His sensational victory had elevated the American to unprecedented fame, and, perhaps, he simply did not want to jeopardize his new image... Fortunately, Kramnik did not go back on his promise (to compete in the event of a loss in India). And the sixth competitor was Evgeny Bareyev, invited at the last moment. Thus, for the first time in the history of chess, a tournament that had cleared the 2700 mark achieved the 19th category!

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|       Players           | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |Points|Place|
|-------------------------|---|---|---|---|---|---|------|-----|
| 1. G. Kasparov (Russia) |   |= =|1 =|1 =|1 =|= 1|  7   | 1-2 |
|-------------------------|---|---|---|---|---|---|------|-----|
| 2. V. Ivanchuk (Ukraine)|0 =|   |1 =|1 =|= =|1 1|  7   | 1-2 |
|-------------------------|---|---|---|---|---|---|------|-----|
| 3. V. Kramnik (Russia)  |0 =|0 =|   |= 1|1 =|1 0|  5   |  3  |
|-------------------------|---|---|---|---|---|---|------|-----|
| 4. A. Shirov (Latvia)   |0 =|0 =|= 0|   |= =|1 =|  4   | 4-5 |
|-------------------------|---|---|---|---|---|---|------|-----|
| 5. N. Short (England)   |0 =|= =|0 =|= =|   |= =|  4   | 4-5 |
|-------------------------|---|---|---|---|---|---|------|-----|
| 6. E. Bareyev (Russia)  |= 0|0 0|0 1|0 1|= =|   |  3   |  6  |
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