The Eurotel World Chess Trophy was a 32-player single-elimination chess tournament hosted in Prague, Czech Republic from 27 April to 5 May 2002. Presented under the auspices of Online World Chess, 14 of the world's top 15 players were in attendance, including the reigning world champion Vladimir Kramnik and the world's No. 1-ranked player Garry Kasparov. At stake was a share of the €500,000 prize fund and the EuroTel Trophy. The finalists of the tournament were determined by a series of knockout matches played at rapid time controls, but the finals alone were played at a classical time control. Indian grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand won the tournament, defeating Anatoly Karpov 1½–½ in the finals.
Details
Format Except for the finals, each knockout match was best-of-two games, with both games played at a rapid time control of 25 minutes + 5 seconds per move. In the case of a 1–1 tie, a two-game blitz match would be played. If still tied, the match would come down to armageddon. The finals was also a best-of-two games, but was played at a classical time control of 40 moves in 2 hours, followed an additional hour for 20 more moves, and 30 minutes for the rest of the game.
Participants
, 2838 , 2809 , 2752 , 2745 , 2744 , 2724 , 2718 , 2711 , 2710 , 2707 , 2704 , 2702 , 2698 , 2690 , 2688 , 2677 , 2676 , 2673 , 2659 , 2652 , 2647 , 2642 , 2641 , 2633 , 2631 , 2624 , 2618 , 2616 , 2610 , 2606 , 2596 , 2594
Schedule +DateDayRoundTime28 AprSundayRound 114:0029 AprMonday14:0030 AprTuesdayRound 214:001 MayWednesdayQuarterfinals14:002 MayThursdaySemifinals14:005 MaySundayFinals12:306 MayMonday12:30
Results
The surprise of the tournament was Anatoly Karpov, who put together an impressive run with wins against Short, Kramnik, Morozevich, and Shirov to reach the finals. In the other half of the bracket, the No. 1 seed Kasparov was upset by Vasyl Ivanchuk in a sudden-death game after the rapid and blitz games did not produce a winner; Ivanchuk would subsequently lose to Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand in the semifinals, bowing out with a loss in the second blitz tiebreak game after both rapid games ended in a draw.In the final, Anand defeated Karpov in Game 1 with White to take a 1–0 lead; Anand maneuvered his light-squared bishop to slowly gain an advantage throughout the game, before 54... a5? gave the Indian a winning advantage. In Game 2, Karpov pressed but was unable to crack Anand's Semi-Slav Defense, leading to a 34-move draw. +2002 EuroTel Knockout Tournament – FinalNameRating12Total27521½1½26900½½
References