By IM J. L. Fernández, special for Jaque

From 15 to 27 April, the XXV International Costa del Sol Tournament was held at the Natali Hotel in Torremolinos.

This tournament, organized by the Liceo de Málaga–Peña Malaguista and the F.M.D.A., under the sponsorship of the Málaga City Council, the Liceo and F.E.D.A., reached FIDE Category VII.

At first it seemed very evenly balanced, and this was shown by the high number of draws played. Kudrin and Rivas seemed, however, to be the strongest favorites. They began very strongly, with 3 out of 4, but then suffered a dip, scoring 1½ out of 4, before finishing with 2½ out of 3 and thus taking shared first place.

Rivas, who started with 2 out of 2, in the third round against Martin, and in a very advantageous game, only drew, demoralizing himself somewhat in his effort to achieve the GM norm. In any case, after his performance in Linares and this first place at the Costa del Sol, he has confirmed his status as the number one player in Spanish chess. It is a pity that Manolo does not prepare himself adequately in the field of openings — a study of more aggressive lines — since this alone is, in my opinion, what separates him from the GM title.

I began by losing to him in the first round, and so my own aspirations for a GM norm also went down. Little by little I recovered positions, and after beating Pia Cramling in the ninth round, I was leading the table with 6 points. Two final draws with Ochoa and Silvino García, where I did not want to take risks in order to secure a good place in the table, gave me this shared first-to-third place.

Bellón, together with Kudrin, was the greatest fighter of the tournament. His games were very hard fought, and he was seen to play with great morale, but in his last game he was unable to beat Rivas, which would have given him first place.

The Portuguese player Antunes was the one who made the fewest draws. He started badly, with two defeats, but finished with 4 out of 5, thereby achieving his second IM norm. I am sure he will soon obtain the third norm and the title, since he took considerable risks and it was a very deserved norm.

O. Rodríguez took sixth place. As has been happening for some time, he seems somewhat lacking in chess motivation, since he almost always settles for draws when the quality of his play should lead him to study and risk more.

Ochoa and Martín tied for seventh and eighth places. Javier became champion of the draw with 10 draws to his name, and Martín did not have his tournament, perhaps because of personal problems that at the same time prevented him from achieving the necessary concentration, and this was reflected in his result.

Pia Cramling, the second-ranked woman player in the world, together with Chiburdanidze, on the women’s Elo list, was an unknown quantity for everyone. We knew of her good results, but we had never played against her. She played good positional chess and has very good concepts, but she falls rather short tactically. Against Antunes and O. Rodríguez, in very advantageous positions, she did not know how to solve the tactical problems. She seems to be very enthusiastic about chess; she works a great deal on her games, which she almost always extends with an extra hour of analysis, since for her it was normal to analyze endlessly. I think that if she improves tactically, she will have opportunities to fight for the world title.

Polo had a great tournament, but had a poor finish with 1 out of 4. Even so, his performance was very good and he managed to enter the FIDE Elo list.

Silvino García was completely demoralized by a series of unfortunate circumstances: a two-round delay, losing his first two games, and certain acclimatization difficulties — schedule changes and so on. All this was reflected in his final placing.

Gómez took the red lantern, although he began by playing well. He had advantages against Pia Cramling, but lost; against O. Rodríguez and Polo he had easily won games and collapsed. He was very nervous and had problems with the organization, which affected his performance.

The organization was somewhat deficient. The fatal food, which even caused intestinal problems for several players, weakened their strength for the daily struggle.

The playing hall was good, with only one black mark: in the last rounds a school tournament was held there as well, which produced a great deal of noise and made it difficult to concentrate.

There were also frictions with the organization regarding travel subsidies, since some players considered that the amount given to them was less than the expenses. I do not understand how there can be such poor criteria for paying travel expenses.

From here I would like to make a request to organizers of international tournaments about how to handle contracts with players:

1. Communicate their interest in such dates as far in advance as possible.
2. Clarify the conditions of travel assistance. Payment of air tickets from our places of residence is the most logical arrangement, as are prizes.

At present, the most common situation is that players have to call the organization to find out whether they are going to play; the prizes are not known with certainty until the day the event starts — and sometimes not even then. I also ask that events should not overlap. For example, during the Costa del Sol, both the UGA tournament in Barcelona and the Open in Benidorm were being played at the same time, while in May there is nothing. This is a situation that occurs frequently, and the result is mutual brilliance being lost because not all professionals can attend and have to choose among them. FEDA must exercise its authority and act as coordinator so that this does not happen.