In late February and early March 2001, Polgár played in the elite Linares double round-robin invitational of six of the world's strongest players. The tournament was Kasparov's triumph as he scored 7½ points in 10 games. The other five participants, Polgár, Karpov, Shirov, Grischuk and Lékó all finished with 4½ for second and last position. However, Polgár drew both her games with Kasparov, the first time in her career she had done this under tournament time controls. In March 2001, she reached the semifinals of the "World Cup" rapid play tournament in Cannes. She made it to the final four from the 16 grandmasters in the tournament. She lost the semifinal match to Evgeny Bareev, who in turn lost to Kasparov. In a quarterfinal playoff blitz game, she forced Joël Lautier, France's strongest player, to resign in 12 moves when she won his queen which resulted in the audience of several hundred bursting into applause. In June 2001, Polgár finished fourth in the European Championship in Ohrid, Macedonia, a 13-round Swiss-system tournament of 143 Grandmasters and 38 IMs. In October 2001, she tied for first with GM Loek van Wely in the Essent Tourney in Hoogeveen, the Netherlands.