Chess Weekly

I scored only 50 per cent points in the Saraevo tournament in May and was very upset by this. I tried very hard, spent more time at the chessboard than any other player but yet I failed to solve the key problems. I am very pleased that my following performance was more successful.
In Enghien les Bains Akopian and Korchnoi were not in their best sporting form. I would rather a bstain from evaluating the causes of Viktor Lvovich's poor performance there and Vladimir was not properly prepared for the competition. Then they recovered somehow but those ones who played with them in the beginning had a solid handicap. Radzhabov played slightly worse than usually and Lautier produced a poor impression. His final result corresponds to his play there.
The young French players did very well - Bauer and especially Fressinet. The latter one displays a tremendous progress, he is not afraid of anyone and he could have obtained higher position in the tournament table under the circumstances more favorable for him.
Polgar played exactly as she was expected to do. She demonstrates a solid performance in the recent time. Adams acted in his positional manner - he did not obtained a single worse position and won everything that was possible.
Gelfand produced the best impression among all the players and he did not obtained the first prize only by some misfortune.
I played in Enghien les Bains exactly so as I did a month earlier in Saraevo. However all the negative trivia transformed into their opposite in some way. It is possible to say that it was a great deal of luck but there was a tight struggle in all my games which was a reason for mistakes. Generally I am satisfied by my performance in Bosnia and France but the tournaments differed for me in some strange way.