WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP KRAMNIK-LEKO BRISSAGO 2004 CENTRO DANNEMANN

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2 WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP KRAMNIK-LEKO BRISSAGO 2004 CENTRO DANNEMANN

3 DIRECTED BY PIERRE RUIZ-VIDAL NOVEMBER 2004, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FOR SETTINGS DOCUMENTATION, ARCHIVES LAURENT TINTURE PRODUCED WITH DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED BY CHESSBASE, FRIEDRICH FRIEDEL CENTRO DANNEMANN BRISSAGO, JACOB AAGAARD, RAINER KNAAK, JOERG WEGERLE CHESS TODAY, VLADIMIR BARSKY, MIKHAIL GOLUBEV, MAXIM NOTKIN, NIKOLAI VLASSOV, ALEX BABURIN THE WEEK IN CHESS, JAMES COLEMAN, MARK CROWTHER, MALCOLM PEIN SPORT-EXPRESS, YURI VASILIEV, SERGEI SHIPOV

4 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND THE FIRST STEP HAMBOURG, GERMANY The "First Classical World Chess Championship after four years" between Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko was announced by the sponsors, the Swiss Tobacco manufacturer Dannemann and organisers in a press conference which was staged in the exclusive Hamburg hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, in May The press invitation, started off with the drawing of colours with a new and interesting twist. Adriana Madeira, a representative of Dannemann, selected a square, f5, which was not revealed to the players. Kramnik and Leko started a blitz game, and the first to place a piece on the selected square got White in game one of the match. Peter Leko managed with the move h4-f5 in the position below. So he will be White in game one on September 25th. Present at the press conference were Hans Leusen, President of Dannemann Brazil, the title holder Vladimir Kramnik, challenger Peter Leko, ACP President Joel Lautier and a few others involved in the staging of the match. The press conference was attended by a group of around forty journalists and photographers. Hans Leusen, speaking in German with a pleasant Dutch accent, told the audience that the size of the prize sum underlines the global importance of this tournament our commitment is intended to contribute to the further development and professionalisation of chess. The proceedings were simultaneously-translated for Vladimir Kramnik. Peter Leko and Joel Lautier are both fluent in German. During the conference Vladimir's mobile phone suddenly rang... but there were no serious consequences, like disqualification or anything. One of the main speakers was Joel Lautier, who announced the full backing of the event by the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP). His speech, which is given below, retraced the schism in the chess world and the problems created by the FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Echecs). Lautier, who is also the tournament director of the Dannemann event, presented the rules for the World Championship, which according to ACP could also ChessBase form the framework for future World Championship duels. He set FIDE a deadline for October to organise the match between Kasparov and the winner in Libya, or they would have to look at other reunification options. In his address Vladimir Kramnik mentioned that the person on the Dannemann logo had a stunning resemblance to the first chess World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz. When asked about his chances against Leko he drew laughter by quoting Alekhine, who speaking about his opponent Capablanca, said: "I don't know how I'm going to beat him; but I also cannot imagine how he can beat me." Peter Leko spoke about the importance this match has for him personally and for the Hungarian chess community which has for such a long time been close to providing a challenger for the World Championship but never quite made it until now. Peter told the audience that Hungary is planning live coverage of the event in public places all over the country. 5

5 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND JOEL LAUTIER S ADDRESS MAY 12, 2004 Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, Obwohl es für mich immer eine aufregende Herausforderung ist, in Goethes Sprache zu reden, reicht mein Wissen unglücklicher Weise nicht aus, um meine Meinungen über einige der eher komplizierteren Themen, die ich heute vor Ihnen erläutern werde, auszudrücken. Lassen sie sich nicht von diesen wenigen deutschen Sätzen täuschen, da ich sie heute morgen sorgfältig geübt habe. Wenn sie mir erlauben, wechsle ich jetzt auf Englisch.* Ladies and gentlemen, For those of you who do not know me, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Joel Lautier, I m a chess Grandmaster and the highest rated player in France. I am here in a different capacity however, as the President of the ACP, the Association of Chess Professionals. To start with, I would like to briefly describe the current situation in the chess world. In order to do that, I need to go back a little in the history of our game. In 1993, the then FIDE World Champion Garry Kasparov and his official challenger Nigel Short left FIDE, the international chess federation, in order to play their match under the roof of a new organization created specifically for that purpose. Ever since that date, the chess world has been split in two, FIDE continued to stage its world championship events, while Garry Kasparov stayed away from them and played independent matches with his world title at stake. After successfully defending it in 1993 and 1995, Kasparov was defeated in 2000 by Vladimir Kramnik, who thus became the new World Champion. This schism has remained to this day, and that is why we currently have two World Champions, the FIDE titleholder Ruslan Ponomariov from Ukraine and the Classical World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. What exactly entails the title of Classical Champion must be explained. It is a testimony to the fact that the holder of this title belongs to the long, classical tradition of World Champions that goes all the way back to 1886 and to Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Champion. Such a lineage of champions is unique in the history of sports, and what makes it so valuable is the fact that every World Champion has beaten his predecessor in a fair duel. The only exceptions were in 1948 and 1975, but there were good reasons for that: in the first case Alexander Alekhine abruptly died, while in the second Bobby Fischer just stopped playing chess. Therefore, Garry Kasparov himself, in his recent best-selling book My Great Predecessors, only recognizes Vladimir Kramnik as the current World Champion, the fourteenth in the history of chess. Since 1993, FIDE has been struggling to hold its own championships, as it was always lacking the participation of the strongest player at the time. In 2002, by signing the so-called Prague Agreement, FIDE recognized the necessity to reunify the chess world. It took upon itself the responsibility of organizing a FIDE title match between the current holder Ruslan Ponomariov and Garry Kasparov. The winner of this match was due to meet the winner of the Classical World Championship for the reunified title. For reasons that are not fully elucidated to this day, the match between Ponomariov and Kasparov was eventually cancelled by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. This means that FIDE has gone one ChessBase 6

6 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND step backward in the reunification process, since Ponomariov has lost his status as World Champion and now has to defend his title in a large knock-out event involving 128 players before being able to play Kasparov in a separate match. FIDE s attitude towards Ponomariov is very questionable and has provoked a strong reaction from Ponomariov who has refused to take part in the knock-out World Championship, but we shall not dwell on that now. Vladimir Kramnik, in the meantime, has obtained a worthy challenger in the person of Peter Leko, who convincingly won a very strong candidates tournament in Dortmund in Once their match will be over, we shall know the name of the Classical World Champion and this part of the Prague Agreement, at any rate, will have been fulfilled. FIDE s part of the Prague deal, however, is not likely to be delivered very soon. At the moment, FIDE is experiencing serious difficulties in attracting the best players in its World Championship knock-out event that will be staged in Libya in June-July. All the FIDE World Champions since 1993, all four of them Karpov, Khalifman, Anand and Ponomariov, have refused to play in Libya. On top of that, out of the best 16 players in the world, 9 have declined to play in Libya, not counting Kasparov who is granted a direct match for the FIDE title against the winner from Libya. This basically means that FIDE has already failed in its avowed attempt to reunify the chess world. It also means that in the current state of things, FIDE s World Championship title cannot be considered legitimate if so many top players are missing from the competition. As you can see, FIDE has not done a stellar job in running high-level chess during the last years, and that is precisely why the ACP has come into existence. In September 2003, a small group of strong professional players decided that it was time to take matters in their hands and not let the bureaucrats from FIDE or the ECU, the European branch of FIDE, dictate professional players how and where they should play chess. This small group of players gathered together and created the ACP, a not-for-profit international organisation established in Paris under the French law. We actively started recruiting new members from October 2003 and in December of last year, a Board of nine members was elected to run the association and I was elected as its president. Eight months after the birth of the ACP, we have more than 200 members, a large majority of which are high-level professional chess players. The aim of the ACP is twofold, to defend the rights of chess players worldwide and to ChessBase Hans Leusen, President of Dannemann Brazil and Joel Lautier. promote chess by setting up a circuit of professional chess events. Both FIDE and the ECU have, unfortunately, given us a lot of work as far as defending the players is concerned. I will just explain briefly some of the more recent conflicts we have had to solve. As I mentioned previously, the next FIDE World Championship will be a large knock-out event with 128 players, to be staged in Tripoli, Libya. However, in order to take part, the participants had to sign a so-called Player s Undertaking that had very little to do with a proper contract. It is actually a written commitment signed by the players, which contains no obligations on FIDE s part and does not even bear any signature from a FIDE representative. This means that if a dispute arises between a player and FIDE, the organization can use this document at leisure while the player has no binding evidence of FIDE s obligations towards him or her. FIDE has turned a deaf ear to our offer of improving this undertaking, as a result many top players have refused to sign it and have consequently been excluded from the World Championship. I must also point out that, by holding the FIDE World Championship in Libya, FIDE is de facto depriving all Israeli players and several American participants of a chance to fight for the world title. To this day, it is absolutely unclear whether Israeli players are allowed to enter Libya, as FIDE s press releases assuring that all players will be granted visas have just been completely contradicted by a public statement coming from the Libyan authorities claiming that they never intended to allow Israeli citizens to enter Libya. If this were confirmed, it would be an obvious breach of a basic sporting rule, namely that no participants in a major sports competition can possibly be disqualified on * This introduction says: It is always an exciting challenge for me to speak in the language of Goethe. But my knowledge of it is unfortunately insufficient to adequately express my opinion on the complicated themes which I will explain to you today. Please do not be fooled by these German sentences I practised them carefully this morning. If you permit I will now switch to English. 7

7 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND account of race, citizenship or religious beliefs. Another striking example is FIDE s absurd decision to stage the Women s World Championship in the city of Batumi, located in a province of Georgia called Ajaria. This province was refusing to obey the central powers in the capital Tbilisi, and therefore the Georgian government had warned FIDE and the participants that it was against the staging of a World Championship in Batumi, as it couldn t guarantee the safety of the participants. The ACP repeatedly asked FIDE to let common sense prevail and it finally did, but at a very late stage. The event in Batumi has just been cancelled and moved to Elista, capital of Kalmykia, only a couple of weeks prior to the event. The list of FIDE s management mistakes goes on and on, but I will bore you no longer with that. The second part of the ACP activity, promoting chess, has been more rewarding. We have staged two successful Internet chess tournaments and we are now actively working on building a unified circuit of tournaments called the ACP Tour. In a nutshell, the idea is to group important existing tournaments, both at classical and rapid timecontrols, both from closed and open tournaments, all into one system. The top performers of the season will then be qualified to a Masters event that the ACP plans to organize at the end of next year. For some reason, this simple model, which has worked very well for major individual sports such as tennis, golf or Formula 1, has never been implemented in chess. Given the time and means, we also envision to develop chess teaching for children, as chess is ideally suited to help kids develop a strong sense of logic and therefore, serves as an ideal introduction to mathematics and sciences in general. Numerous other qualities are stimulated by the early practice of chess, such as independent thinking, competitive drive or a sense for aesthetics, to name but a few. Chess is best taught at an early age, around six or seven, when children usually learn to read and their intellect develops at a very fast pace. Having introduced the ACP, I would now like to state its role as far as the Classical World Chess Championship goes. For the reasons described previously, the ACP recognizes the World Championship match between Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko, as opposed to the FIDE event in Libya. However, I must stress that the sponsor Dannemann is the official rights holder to the Classical World Chess Championship, therefore it would be incorrect to call this the ACP World Championship. Nevertheless, the company Dannemann shares the views of the ACP on the current situation in the chess world, that is why I have been offered the function of match director, which it has been my honour to accept. Of course, the big question on everyone s mind is now: what will happen after the World Championship match between Vladimir and Peter? Well, we all agree that what chess needs more than anything else, is the reunification of all the best players in one championship cycle. FIDE has such a damaged reputation nowadays that we fear it will be hard for them to find sponsors to fulfil their part of the reunification process. In fact, the only thing they have going for them is Garry Kasparov s commitment to play one match for the FIDE title. However, even that may not last forever, since Kasparov has already seen his match with Ponomariov twice announced and twice cancelled, in Buenos Aires and Yalta. If FIDE struggles to find the financial backing for a match between the winner in Tripoli and Kasparov, it is not quite clear how they could stage a reunification match. The ACP position is the following: FIDE should be given some time to stage its match between the winner in Tripoli and Kasparov. By the end of the match in Brissago, we should already have a fair idea of how far FIDE has advanced in that direction. If nothing definite is announced by FIDE by the end of October 2004, the ACP will seriously consider taking part in the reunification process. When the time comes, we shall advise everyone in another press conference. Something tells me we might see each other again in the near future! Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. ChessBase 8

8 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND THE CENTRO DANNEMANN SA, BRISSAGO, SWITZERLAND Inspired by the success of the Centro Cultural Dannemann (Bahia, Brazil) at the start of 2002, the Centro Dannemann was founded in Brissago. It is a place where ideas, dreams and thoughts are found. The guests of the Centro Dannemann include among other things: the Locarno Film Festival, the Ruggero Leoncavalo Opera Festival and Miss Switzerland During the 2nd. Dannemann Chess Classico on January 29, 2004 the reigning World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik beat the German national team in a simultaneous match with 2.5:1.5. Centro Dannemann website Rosanna Pierantognetti CENTRO DANNEMANN Via R. Leoncavallo 55 Casella Postale 364 CH Brissago T F M r.pierantognetti@centrodannemann.com CONTACTS: Ellie Zips IRA WÜLFING KOMMUNIKATION Infanteriestraße 19 Haus 4a D München T +49-(0) F +49-(0) M +49-(0) ellie.zips@wuelfing-kommunikation.de 9

9 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND PROFILE OF THE CONTENDERS VLADIMIR KRAMNIK It is an almost senseless challenge to describe the 14th World Chess Champion in only a few lines. His personality has too many facets; his areas of interests too diverse. What is clear is that Vladimir Kramnik is not solely fixated on chess. Current affairs interest him just as intensively as numerous sport and cultural activities, several of which he regularly engages in The cosmopolitan with a deep Russian soul would love to enjoy life ever more intensively, but his ambition to succeed holds this inclination within limits compatible with his career. What is it that marks out the World Champion in him - a person who loves to indulge in a cigarette and sometimes is inclined to drink a good glass of red wine? People close to Kramnik, who presumably works less intensively for chess than most of his competitors, often claim that this has something to do with his creative nature. Kramnik considers chess less as a sport and more as an art. He is always searching for creative and new solutions, particularly when he is playing. In many games, they say, he sees things that no computer can calculate and no other grandmasters could discover. The ingenious ideas would come to him quite easily, they say, providing him with moments of pure joy. Perhaps his predecessor Gary Kasparov expressed it best. Eight years before he lost his title against Kramnik, in an interview in 1992, Kasparov said: "The most talented of all players that I have ever seen is Vladimir Kramnik. As far as talent is concerned, he is definitively the number 1. The 16-year-old Kramnik already plays good chess. He has a brilliant talent. There are a few strong players, but they do not play chess, they move the pieces. Kramnik on the other hand plays Chess!" The artistic vein in the 29-year-old Muscovite must have been given to him in his cradle. His father Boris is a well-known sculptor; his mother Irina is a music teacher. That this assumption is ChessBase not far off the mark is evidenced by his response to the following question, what he would like to do after the end of his career?, the aficionado of classical music and literature answered: "start a family and learn to play the piano." Vladimir started to play chess at the age of 5. At 12, his enormous talent was recognised in Moscow and encouraged. Little Kramnik got better and better at only 16, he won the U18 World Championship. The list of his victories is long, very long. He has already finished all major tournaments in the world as the victor. His six-time success in Dortmund surely stands out. And he holds a record, included in the Guinness Book of Records, which has made sporting history: Kramnik was unbeaten at the highest level in 80 classical games in the period of 18 months up to July Thursday, November 2, 2000, Classical World Chess Championship, London: Vladimir Kramnik becomes the 14th World Chess Champion with a result against Gary Kasparov. After Gary Kasparov had congratulated him, the greatest dream of his life became true. Kramnik threw his arms up into the air twice in triumph. The applause of the public and the subsequent tumult will remain unforgotten. It was a historic moment in the history of chess: Kramnik had not only won the lion s share of the two-million dollar price money, but by his victory had also ended the 15- year era of his predecessor on the chess throne. Although he was still able to achieve decent tournament results, months after his triumph, Kramnik fell into a motivational trough, which is well known to many top sportsmen. For a good year now, he has clearly been on his way back to 10

10 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND his old strength, as the most recent results prove. A good example of this is the best attended grandmaster tournament of the year in Linares in Spain, where he occupied the first place, before his challenger Peter Leko (2) and before ex-world Champion Gary Kasparov (3). Vladimir Kramnik will also require his best form when he takes centre stage in the defence of his title in CENTRO DANNEMANN in Switzerland. His challenger Peter Leko is the only player in classical chess to have a positive balance against him and "is the toughest opponent that I could meet. But I am afraid of no-one, not even of Leko. I will be optimally prepared" says Kramnik. So, who is going to win this great duel - the artist or the sportsman? - The Bohemian or the Marathon Man? Bets should be accepted. One thing is certain: the long history of the Classical World Chess Championship will be enriched by a further great chapter. CAREER HIGHLIGHTS Born: , citizen of Russia, Classical World Chess Champion World Junior Champion, World Cadet Champion. Three-times Olympiad winner as a member of the Russian team, Russian Honored Master of Sport. From Kramnik has occupied places 1, 2 or 3 in the world rating list. Current rating: Elo 2770 Year Event Score Placing Year Event Score Placing 1990 Russian Championship, Kuibyshev (classical) I 1991 World Championship (U18), Guarapuav (classical) I 1992 Chalkidiki (classical) 7,5/11 I 1993 Belgrade (classical) 6/9 II Interzonal Tournament, Biel (classical) 8,5/13 II 1994 Overall result PCA Intel Grand Prix'94 I 1995 Dortmund (classical) 7/9 I Horgen (classical) 7/10 I-II Belgrade (classical) 8/11 I-II 1996 Monaco 16/22 I Dos Hermanas (classical) 6/9 I-II Dortmund (classical) 7/9 I-II 1997 Dos Hermanas (classical) 6/9 I-II Dortmund (classical) 6,5/9 I Tilburg (classical) 8/11 I-III 1998 Wijk aan Zee (classical) 8,5/13 I-II Dortmund (classical) 6/9 I-III Monaco (blindfold and rapidplay) 15/22 I 1999 Monaco (blindfold and rapidplay) 14,5/22 I 2000 Linares (classical) 6/10 I-II Dortmund (classical) 6/9 I-II Classical World Chess Championship Match Kramnik v. Kasparov 8,5:6, Match Kramnik v. Leko (rapidplay) 7,0:5,0 Monaco (blindfold and rapidplay) 15/22 I-II Match Kramnik v. Anand (rapidplay) 5;0:5,0 Dortmund (classical 6th win!) 6,5/10 I-II 2002 Match Kramnik v. Anand (Leon) 3,5:2.5 Man vs. Machine (Bahrain) 4,0:4, Linares (classical) 7,0/12 I-II Dortmund (classical) 5,5/10 I I-III Cap'Agde (France) Rapid World Chess Championships 8,5/13 II 2004 Handicap Simul (classical) Kramnik vs. National Team of Germany 2,5:1,5 Linares (classical) 7,0/12 I Monaco (Overall result) 14,5/22 I-II Brissago, a few miles away from Ascona. The Centro Dannemann building is just near Lago Maggiore. ChessBase 11

11 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND VLADIMIR KRAMNIK «CHESS IS SO DEEP...» Vladimir Kramnik: Chess is so deep, I simply feel lost How has chess influenced his life? What does it mean to be World Champion? How does he train? And what advice would he give to George W. Bush? Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who is scheduled to defend his title against challenger Peter Leko at the end of September, spoke to the German news portal Spiegel Online. World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik, 28, is facing a difficult title match against Hungarian challenger and number four in the world rankings Peter Leko, 25. Spiegel Online spoke to Kramnik about the intangible moments in the game, about the feeling of being a true master and about strategies for US President Bush. Spiegel Online: Mr Kramnik, is there any subject, apart from chess, about which you would like to speak? Kramnik: At this moment no. Spiegel Online: Does chess improve your ability to cope with life? Kramnik: Not really, but it influences my life very much. I have played chess since I was five, and it shapes my thinking. I am always very logical sometimes too logical. Spiegel Online: Can you give us an example? Kramnik: I cannot think of one. I only know that I am always thinking, even in situations where it is not required. Spiegel Online: Have you for this reason ever missed a chance with a woman because you thought too much or for too long? Kramnik: Well, maybe But I must say I have always been in good relationships. The problem is that my life is pretty hard work, play, work, play. As a chess professional I do not have as much time for a relationship as me and my girlfriend would like. Spiegel Online: Is your approach with your family and friends dominated by strategy and tactics? Kramnik: In my private life I am not Machiavellian. I am a normal human being and do not want to manipulate anyone. Maybe I have what it takes to be a Iago [personification of evil in Othello], but I would never use this ability. Spiegel Online: Good chess players are often weird creatures and loners. How difficult is it for you to form friendships that you find interesting? Kramnik: I have many friends. For instance in Hamburg I recently met the Klitschkos. We played a game of chess, but time flew bye. They were very disappointed that we could not end the game. I told them not to worry, I would keep the position in my mind to finish it later. Spiegel Online: Did you get to box against the Klitschkos in return? Kramnik: No, we had a pleasant time. They are very intelligent guys, and I like their straightforward, honest ways. Most of my friends are sports people or musicians. I prefer conversations where I do not have to talk about chess. But I have discovered that almost all musicians play chess. There is obviously a connection. Spiegel Online: Chess and music follow the laws of mathematics, both require creativity. How do necessity and freedom fit together? Kramnik: Maybe it is better not to get too mystical here. I prefer the saying do not try to understand things that are working perfectly. Spiegel Online: But you are considered someone who has the deep Russian soul. Kramnik: I don t know what that is supposed to mean. Spiegel Online: Where does your intellectual modesty come from? Der Spiegel, which was founded in 1947 as a Time/Newsweek style news magazine, has been Germany s most influential weekly publication ever since. It s circulation is 1.1 million (with a peak of 1.4 million in September 2001). Spiegel Online is the biggest news portals in Europe. Both the magazine and the web site have been covering chess vigorously in the past. Spiegel-Online carried the matches Kramnik vs. Deep Fritz (2003), Kasparov vs. Deep Junior and Kasparov vs. X3D-Fritz (2003) live on their web site. 12

12 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND Kramnik: Because the more you penetrate into the things, the less you can understand them. Chess is a good example here. When you begin to understand a game of chess in its full depth, you find that certain rules become blurred. Suddenly you feel that one needs to create a little space here and attack there. But why it is like that, you don t know. To play according to textbooks is fine, up to a certain level. Perhaps up to master level, but not to grandmasters. At this level you have to feel the game. It comes to you. Spiegel Online: How does that feel? Kramnik: At some stage you feel you are the master of a game. Sometimes you do not have to think that much. You ponder some of the details, but the greater strategy simply comes to you in certain situation. It is astonishing. I like things you cannot touch. Spiegel Online: Does that compensate for the sacrifices you must make? Kramnik: Easily. When you master a brilliant game, which will appear in chess books for hundreds of years and when your hand simply makes the next move intuitively... that is a marvellous feeling. Spiegel Online: Are you a genius? Kramnik: I am pretty talented. Spiegel Online: Once again so modest. Kramnik: You know, sometimes I think I have understood a position, but after a couple of years I realize that I have understood nothing. That is what is so mysterious and fascinating about chess. You have a board with 64 squares, and it is so deep that not even ten Kramniks can know which is the best move. Sometimes you simply feel lost. You cannot feel the ground. Spiegel Online: Are you afraid of the depth? Kramnik: It is sometimes painful. You simply cannot reach the ground. This ground or call it Mark Crowther, TWIC final truth, if it exists at all, is not of humans. Spiegel Online: Will a machine ever be in a position to light up the darkness? Kramnik: I don t think so. Not even the strongest computers even come close to the ground. Spiegel Online: What does the machines lack? Kramnik: The strongest computer, against which I played in October 2002, can examine four million positions per second. You can work out how many it plays through in six or seven minutes but they are too weak. Spiegel Online: But you still say that man are superior to the computer. Kramnik: Because man has intuition. He has this untouchable moment within himself. We may call it understanding. Spiegel Online: People say that women are the more intuitive beings. But why is it only Judit Polgar who is playing at the very highest level? Kramnik: Chess is a fighting game. One needs the so-called male qualities. Women are in general softer, they have protective instincts rather than fighting spirit. Also more boys take up chess than girls. Later their career is very often more important than the family. Spiegel Online: You have often played against Judit Polgar. Do you notice any differences from male opponents? Kramnik: No, she plays chess like a man. She has already beaten Kasparov and Anand. Spiegel Online: You yourself beat Kasparov four years ago und won the World Championship title. How do you explain your subsequent crisis? Kramnik: It was not really a crisis. Instead of always being first at tournaments for a while I was only second. Most chess players would be very happy about that. Spiegel Online: Motivational problems? Kramnik: Being World Champion has changed my life completely. Suddenly I felt a heavy load on my shoulders. With the title the amount of work is growing: more interviews, more commissions, more chess. The sport develops with the visions of the World Champion. And then you also want a bit of private life. Every minute counts. That affected me in the beginning. It used to be the same for Boris Spassky. Spiegel Online: Spassky was World Champion from 1969 until his loss to Bobby Fischer in Did you talk to him? Kramnik: He told me that those were the unhappiest years of his life. About a year after winning the title there was a moment that he felt that he could have lost to a simple master. He was devastated. In my case it was not quite as bad. Spiegel Online: Currently you are preparing for a World Championship match against Peter Leko, which will take place from September 25 to October 18 in Brissago, Switzerland. How is your shape at the moment? Kramnik: In the past months my game has become stronger. 13

13 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND Spiegel Online: You said that the World Championship match is against the next generation. You will soon turn 29, and Leko is only four years younger... Kramnik:.it is not about for how many years one has lived, but through how many one has lived. In other words: It is the intensity of life that matters. For me a year is as densely packed as normally two are. Four weeks of a World Championship match count as much as otherwise a couple of years. Thus I feel older than I really am. Spiegel Online: How do you prepare for the upcoming World Championship match? What does a chess player s work look like? Kramnik: I work at chess even when you do not see it. Don t think I m crazy, but I can give an interview and at the same time be thinking about a very complicated position. Sometimes when I go to bed in the evening I can still work. Spiegel Online: So it is not a 40-hour week? Kramnik: No, it is possible to work for 20 hours a day from time to time. But sometimes a walk is more creative than analysing for five hours on the board. Spiegel Online: How do you work when you are in an uncreative phase? Kramnik: Then I finish off the routine work. There are a lot of mechanical jobs. Every week between 1000 and 1500 new games are published, which I have to go through. I don t need any inspiration for that. Spiegel Online: What can you do to make the title match fall into a creative phase? Kramnik: That is a complicated thing. Everything plays a role. Chess is an incredibly emotional game. If everything around you is harmonious, when you are feeling good, you are in a creative mood. If something is disturbing you and you are in a bad mood, then it is difficult to be creative. So you have to create the right atmosphere. Spiegel Online: Do you use any psychological tricks to put yourself in a good mood? Kramnik: Everyone has his own methods: a few exercises, some meditation can help. And I am generally an optimist. ChessBase Spiegel Online: What are the sources of your inspiration? Kramnik: Actually it is more important to keep away negative influences than to be stimulated. But I appreciate good conversations. Spiegel Online: You are very analytical in your thoughts. Would it not be possible to help humanity by giving heads of state like the US President George W. Bush a few helpful strategies, for instance to solve the problems in the Middle East? Kramnik: They can do it on their own. Spiegel Online: Perhaps you are more intelligent than many heads of state. Kramnik: I must confess I find it strange that some people are so convinced of something even if they do not know all the facts. Even intelligent human beings can become enthused by a subject without really getting the whole picture. It is like trying to pass judgement on a position with 18 pieces on the board, but you only know where two of them stand. Spiegel Online: Assuming you had enough information about Iraq, would you be able to give Bush some tactical advice? Kramnik: In that case I would probably prefer to go to the mountains of Tibet and spend the rest of my life praying. The above interview was conducted by Spiegel staff writer Alexander Schwabe. It took place during Kramnik's visit to Hamburg, where Centro Dannemann formally announced the staging of the "First Classical World Chess Championship after four years" between Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko. 14

14 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND VLADIMIR KRAMNIK «FIRST, I HAVE TO DEFEND MY TITLE» Pierre Barthelemy: How are you organizing your preparation for the match, and is it different from the 2000 preparation? Vladimir Kramnik: Rather similar in comparison with my match against Kasparov. Of course you are always ready to optimise and to adjust a bit. PB: How important are the computer chess programs in the preparation and during a match? VK: On the one hand it is very important to use the computer in your team for getting a certain basic level in your preparation. On the other hand it is not good to use it all the time. In a way you have to become independent from it so as not to affect your own play. Let me put it like this: my trainers are working with the computer permanently I do not. PB: In 2000, you told me that your victory against Garry Kasparov was psychological; how do you prepare psychologically for this new opponent? VK: I do not think I defeated Kasparov just because of psychological resilience. The psyche is of course an important part as in every sport especially in a World Chess Championship match. But your general understanding of chess, your preparation, your physical fitness, your mental energy, your strategic and tactical abilities are very important as well. It is complex: You have to be strong in every field to become World Champion. 15 PB: Can you define your style and point out the differences between your style and Peter Leko's? VK: Our styles are a bit different because we are different personalities. But at the same time we are both universal players. In modern chess you need to adjust your play to the situation even if this is not in accordance with your style or your preferences. There is a famous saying: It is not important whether one plays a strategic or tactical style. Nowadays it is just important to play a winning style. PB: This match is supposed to be the first step towards a unification match; do you think this reunification match will occur some day and do you include this prospect in your preparation? VK: This match in the Centro Dannemann is not a step, this match is for the World Chess Championship title in accordance with the classical bloodline starting in 1886 with Wilhelm Interview conducted by Pierre Barthélémy of the newspaper Le Monde, Paris and reproducted here with their kind permission. Vladimir Kramnik and Wilhelm Steinitz. ChessBase Steinitz. It is the main chess event of the year. Meanwhile the chess community is more and more aware that a possible unification will not depend on the Classical World Chess Champion alone. But please let me stop here. I have to defend my title first of all. If I am successful I will start to analyse the entire situation. How did his preparations go? "Naturally, I cannot tell you the details. I am satisfied the way my preparations went. But even if I wasn't satisfied I probably wouldn't tell you that."

15 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND VLADIMIR KRAMNIK THE SECONDS In a press release from September 17, 2004, one week before it is due to start, the organisers of the Classical World Chess Championship at Centro Dannemann, Brissago, Switzerland, between title holder Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko have revealed the seconds of the two participants. The seconds are chess coaches with whom the players have been working to prepare for the match, and who will be present in Brissago to give them every possible support during the World Championship. ChessBase Peter Svidler Evgeny Bareev Miguel Illescas Grandmaster Peter Svidler Russia born 17 June 1976 He won the Russian Championship a number of times before he was in long pants. Apart from numerous regular tournaments he also won the ACP Inaugural Tournament on Playchess.com. Extremely well-read, very smooth and sophisticated, loves cricket. Grandmaster Evgeny Bareev Russia born 21 November 1966 Evgeny Bareev was part of the Kramnik team that defeated Kasparov at the end of 2000 in London. In a memorable interview (ChessBase Magazine 82) he said the following in his typical tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecatory style: Question: Tell me what was it like, why did you become [Kramnik's] second? Bareev: I'm a material guy. I thought Kramnik will win this match and I'll get much money. That was my main motivation. Q: How did you help him, what was your role in the team? Bareev: Huge. I tried to defend this Berlin Defence. I suffered. Because I tried to find any possible positive ideas in this disgusting variation. That is deep suffering. I stopped sleeping at all, the last week. Q: How did Vladimir win the match? Bareev: He was extremely lucky, because everything worked for him. I don't mean variations, every detail worked for him. I think this is the only point in which Kasparov was right, when he described the match and the result of the match, and said that he had been unlucky. But let me keep it a secret, because Vlady may be playing another match, and I don't want to help anybody. Q: Will you be there the next time? Bareev: I hope not. After the match for the next two, three months I was completely exhausted, emotionally, physically. If I'm dying of hunger then I'll come to Vlady and say "Vlady, give me this job." But if I'm not, then I'll go to the organisers and tell them to allow me to spend a day next to Julian Hodgson commenting the match, Anand-Kramnik or Kramnik-Kasparov. Grandmaster Miguel Illescas Spain born 13 December 1965 Spain's top GM for many years, until Paco Vallejo came along. Miguel has seconded Kramnik and the IBM computer Deep Blue, both against Garry Kasparov. 16

16 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND PETER LEKO THE SECONDS ChessBase Vladislav Tkachiev Arshak Petrosian Vladimir Akopian Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev France born 9 November 1973 He hails from the Republic of Kazakhstan and lives in Cannes, France. His Elo rating is 2634, which makes him a member of the elite group of Super-Grandmasters. He is known as a flamboyant personality, popular amongst his colleagues, with a large following of female admirers. His ChessBase Magazine interview was at least as memorable as that of Bareev. Also someone we should go out to dinner with. Grandmaster Vladimir Akopian Armenia born 17 December 1971 Vladimir Akopian: Wijk aan Zee tournament this January he beat none other than Vladimir Kramnik with a spectacular rook sacrifice. Which may be the reason why Peter Leko has taken him on ("Okay, Vladimir, now show us exactly how it is done!"). The 32-year-old Armenian is best known for having won many junior titles and for finishing second to Khalifman in the 1999 FIDE World Championship in Las Vegas. Grandmaster Arshak Petrosian Armenia born 16 December 1953 Arshak Petrosian is part of the Leko clan, since Peter married his daughter Sophia. A very humorous, animated narrator with whom we would go for dinner anytime. How about after game two in Brissago, Arshak? 17

17 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND PROFILE OF THE CONTENDERS PETER LEKO Peter Leko is an ascetic. In the chess world he is considered as the chess sportsman among the super grandmasters. Many label him as the marathon man, an association that not only alludes to his perfect physical fitness. Although a marathon run would not be a problem for the 24-year old Hungarian, he is additionally a perfect example of mental stability. His stamina and calculating skills at the chessboard are phenomenal. Also in seemingly impossible situations, the passionate sports fan is not easy to break. Especially when he is massively under pressure, Leko releases energies and resources that reduced numerous grandmasters to despair. Besides his extraordinary chess talent, these qualities, paired with his incredible strength of will, could become a decisive factor in the several weeklong combat for the World Championship. Experts in the whole world agree: the titleholder Vladimir Kramnik will have to be in his best form to successfully defend himself from the attacks of the Hungarian to his throne. The friendly and always open Hungarian, who despite his asceticism is very tolerant of other people, has meanwhile become a superstar in his homeland. Many times recently he has been selected as sportsman of the month and received numerous awards. Traditionally rich in very strong grandmasters, he is the first chess player in his country to play for the title of World Chess Champion. If he manages to pull off this coup he would become a national hero and put the whole of Hungary in a state of joy. PRODIGY AND WAY UP At the tender age of 14 years, Peter became the youngest grandmaster in the history of chess in the year In 1996 there followed the World U16 title. After he gathered further grandmaster ChessBase scalps and victories at grandmaster tournaments in Denmark, Cuba and Colombia, there followed the first good placements at international top events. His unstoppable rise into the world elite took off properly in the year At strongly attended tournaments in Dortmund, Madrid and Tilburg he was already successful and on July 1, 1999 he achieved a place in the Top Ten for the first time, from which afterwards he could no longer be ousted was the year of his final international breakthrough. Leko convincingly won at the Dortmunder Sparkassen Chess Meeting before Kramnik, Anand and Karpov. A few months later, he outclassed the strong Russian grandmaster Alexander Khalifman 4.5:1.5 in his homeland. 5,000 chess fans followed this event in Budapest: after each game, he was applauded by minute long ovations from the hot-blooded Magyars. Already four years ago, Peter Leko was close to making an attempt at the World Championship. He recognised in good time, however, that, for the last step and the highest level of all, a few changes in his game were indispensable. In the year 2001, he thus became a little more reserved, withdrew himself more, but he and his team above all his main trainer Arshak Petrosian remained busy into the background and as from 2002 have reached new land. Leko s transformation was evident for the first time in Wijk aan Zee (The Netherlands) and Cannes. In March 2002, he then won the Grand Prix Tournament in Dubai, displayed a fantastic performance at a preparation tournament in Essen (Germany) and came optimally prepared to his second home: Dortmund. 18

18 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND July 21, 2002: After a five-hour struggle in the packed Goldsaal of the Dortmund Westfalenhalle, he was able to gain a draw in the fourth and decisive game after the incessant attacks of the strong Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and with 2.5:1.5 won the candidates final to the applause of the public. On the way there, he was able to eliminate such renowned elite players as Alexei Shirov (Spain), Evgeni Bareev (Russia), Michael Adams (England), Alexander Morozevich (Russia) or Boris Gelfand (Israel). Leko has meanwhile confirmed this success through outstanding victories in the best attended international tournaments and thus continued to strengthen his status as the legitimate challenger and World Champion hopeful. The pride and great hope of Hungary now wishes to take the last step of all in the Centro Dannemann in order to win the most renowned title of the history of sport. Also to honour a promise that he made to himself and the public at the age of 12 years: "I will be World Champion." Year Event CAREER HIGHLIGHTS : Date of Birth Citizen of Hungary Current ELO rating: 2741 No. 1 of the National Team of Hungary Challenger of World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik Peter Leko is married with Sofya Petrosyan since September 2nd 2000 Hobbies: Football, Tennis, Bowling, Music 1992 International Master 1994 International Grandmaster (youngest GM in the history of Chess) 1995 Sensational 3rd place as 15-year old boy in Dortmund (Cat. 17) 1996 Junior World Champion U Winner of several GM tournaments such as in Denmark, Cuba, Columbia nd place at Tilburg (Cat. 18) 1999 Winner of the Rapid Grand Prix in Bordeaux (France) Winner of Dortmund (Cat. 19) 2000 Winner (4,5-1,5) in a classical match over former WC Alexander Khalifman in Budapest 2001 Winner (4,5-3,5) in a Fischer-Random-Match over IGM Michael Adams BEST INDIVIDUAL RESULTS Year Event in Mainz (Germany) 3rd place at Dortmund (Cat. 21) Winner of the Rapid Master Event in Nordhorn (Germany) 2002 Winner of the Rapid Grand Prix at Dubai 3rd place at Monaco 2nd place at Essen (Cat.17) Classical World Chess Championship: Winner of the Candidates Tournanent at Dortmund becoming the official Challenger of World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik 2003 Winner of Linares (Cat 20) 2nd place at Monaco nd at Wijk aan Zee (Cat 19) 2nd at Linares (Cat 20) 19

19 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND PETER LEKO «THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY CAREER!» PB: This is your first classical match for the World Championship title; so how are you organizing your preparation? Leko: I have still not finished my preparation but I am almost there. I hope I will achieve the optimum. This event is the highlight of my career irrespective of all my achievements in the past. I have been preparing specifically for about six months. For more or less two months we have been working intensively and I have done all I could. I will be ready in Brissago. PB: How important are the computer chess programs in the preparation and during a match? Leko: You can analyse certain positions with the computer and you are able to develop them. In addition the machine is increasingly useful for simplifying your training. Nowadays you need this because your opponent is using the same technique. But all this should not be over-estimated. A computer is just an instrument nothing more. You have to control the technique and not the other way round. On the highest level you still need to develop your own ideas and you should never forget to be creative. Human decisions, by creating moments of surprise, are still the most important factor in a World Chess Championship fight. PB: How do you prepare physically and psychologically? Leko: I am mentally and physically strong anyway. These are important traits of my character and my nature and I do not need any special preparation in these fields. It is part of my philosophy that body and soul 20 should be in a certain balance. I do not think that I will lose this balance during the match. Of course, at the moment I am exercising physically just to get relaxed and as a compensation for the very demanding chess training. PB: Could you define your style and point out the differences between your style and Vladimir Kramnik s? Leko: There are certainly some similarities between Kramnik and me because we are universal chess players. I think we both have a classical, positional understanding of chess and we are always looking for creativity. In my opinion Kramnik is the player with the deepest understanding of the game in the world, but like every human being: he has weaknesses as well. It is clear that he is a strong, a very strong champion but I think I will get my chances because of my own strong points. PB: This match is supposed to be the first step towards a unification match; do you think this unification match Interview conducted by Pierre Barthélémy of the newspaper Le Monde, Paris and reproducted here with their kind permission. I will be ready... ChessBase will occur some day and do you include this prospect in your preparation? Leko: You know, I am challenging Kramnik, the man who defeated Kasparov convincingly and one of the strongest players ever. I need to concentrate fully on this. Anything else would not be very professional. Fortunately I have not been really involved in chess politics up to now. In general I am positive concerning a unification but I am only ready to think about that after the World Championship.

20 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND JAMES COLEMAN: «WELCOME TO BRISSAGO» Hello everybody, welcome to Brissago, Switzerland and welcome to the 2004 Classical World Chess Chapionship between Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Peter Leko of Hungary, to be held at the Centro Dannemann! Imust admit, when traveling to the event, I did harbour some negative thoughts, such as "Why would anybody organize a World Championship match in an obscure town in South Switzerland, that practically nobody has heard of, and that even fewer have visited?" Had chess really sunk so low that we had to be virtually pushed off the map? How wrong I was though. The answer, as I found out as soon as I arrived can be summed up in a single word - atmosphere. The town, which is 200 metres above sea level and which has only around two thousand inhabitants, is one of the most stunningly beautiful places I have ever visited. The first thing that struck me though, apart from the obvious beauty of the place, is the fact that the whole town has turned into a small chess city. Almost all the shops in the high street, from the local chemists to the women's hair salon, have a chess display in the window. Even the local "exotic dance bar", which offers fine beers and scantily clad girls, has a chequered display above the front door. In the interests of research, I boldly ventured inside to see just how much these ladies knew about Messers Kramnik and Leko. Alas though, after some research, I have to report, the front door display turned out to be just a coincidence? So, from there it was onto the more sobering prospect today of the opening press conference for the match, at the Hotel Ascona, another beautiful four star venue. After some introductory comments from the Deputy Mayor and Mr Hans Leusen, President of Dannemann Brazil the floor was open to throw questions to Kramnik and Leko. What follows is, as far as possible the questions, and the players answers in their own words, as well as some additional comments from GM Joel Lautier, head of the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP). Questions are to both players unless otherwise indicated: Question: "How happy are you with your preparation for this match?" Kramnik: I am very happy, but even if I was not it is likely that I wouldn't tell! Leko: Very happy. I have just finished an intensive training camp and I hope to be able to get the chance to put into practise some of the things I did there. Question: "How high is the risk of boring draws?" Kramnik: Yes there will be some draws, but I don t think many boring ones. What is a boring draw anyway? Leko: Yes, I have heard the figure of twenty-four draws mentioned, despite the fact that the match is only for fourteen games! There will be some draws, but our job is to beat each other, that is what we are here to do. Question: "How do you like the venue for the match?" Kramnik: I am very satisfied indeed. I have been to Switzerland several times in my career and always enjoyed it. You only have to look out of the window, it speaks for itself. Leko: The last time I was in Switzerland was in Horgen 1994, and it is almost too nice, it s sometimes easy to forget why we are here. Question to Kramnik: "Does it disturb you that you have a minus score against Leko in Classical Chess?" Kramnik: Not at all, it simply gives me an additional goal for the match. Question: "Would you care to predict the result of the match?" Peter Leko told us that the beauty of this part of Switzerland posed a danger to him: "You very easily start to feel that it is a holiday. You go for walks up the mountains, swim, enjoy the scenery and slowly forget that you are here for work, deadly serious work." 21

21 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND ChessBase Kramnik: I think it s not wise to dwell on such things. If one is interested in predictions they would do better to visit a website such as for this. Leko: Certainly if I was not playing, I am sure I would be speculating on a result, but when you are a player you focus on one game at a time. Question to Kramnik, Leko and Lautier: "How to sort out the situation in World Chess now?" Lautier: It is very much in the hands of FIDE now. If they are prepared to work with us, I hope the situation can get back on track. Kramnik: I am not even thinking about it one percent. Leko: I agree with Vladimir, this is a question I could return to after the match but right now I can only think of this match. Question: "What are your views on the FIDE time control?" Kramnik: I don t think I have ever played with the FIDE time control, I like the time control we are using here, the longer classical length time control. I am used to this. With this came the closing of the press conference followed by the serving of champagne and light snacks. 22

22 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND THE CHESS WORLD CHAMPIONS A TEST OF STRENGTH OF THE SUPER BRAINS Hardly is there a title in the world of sport and culture that is so rich in tradition and cultural recognition. Whether in the media, literature or the arts: chess and its greatest masters have found a great echo throughout the centuries. To compare with the title of heavyweight champion of the world in boxing, the World Chess Champion has always enjoyed unique social recognition. 118 years have now passed since the Austrian Wilhelm Steinitz celebrated a convincing 10:5 victory over Johan Zukertort to become the first World Champion in the history of chess. Since then, the most extraordinary mental talents either pit their intellectual, mental, mathematical and also physical strengths during great duels. Who doesn t remember the unforgettable dramas and stories between Jose Raul Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky or the duel between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov? The current titleholder and 14th World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, proceeds from this classical line. Before Kramnik could take his chance, however, his predecessor Garry Kasparov fell out with the world association FIDE and marketed his World Championship himself, as had already been the case between 1886 and After Kasparov managed a relatively easy victory against Viswanathan Anand (India) in the New York World Trade Centre in 1995, he met his nemesis in the person of Vladimir Kramnik in the year 2000 (London). Kramnik brought him a bitter defeat without losing a single game with 8.5:6.5, only once before in the long history of the sport had the reigning World Champion not managed to win a single game. The defeat of Kasparov at the same time meant the end of a 15-year era on the chess throne. Many chess fans and players of the younger generation had known no other World Chess Champion than Kasparov in their lifetime. Kasparov vehemently demanded a rematch, but Kramnik wanted to give all top players a fair chance to enter into the title race. Kasparov still refused to take part in the Dortmund candidates tournament in 2002, from which the Hungarian superstar Peter Leko then established himself as the deserved winner over seven other super grandmasters and thus earned the right to challenge for the world title. Kramnik and Leko have won further top titles in the meantime, so that an exciting match in the Centro Dannemann (Switzerland/Ticino) on the beautiful Lago Maggiore is expected, which will be seamlessly introduced into the long and traditional history of chess. The organiser and owner to all rights to this World Championship is the Dannemann Group. All those participating are convinced that they have begun a fruitful partnership, for chess and Dannemann stand for tradition, culture and joy of life uniting peoples. The competition is sanctioned by the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP), which assumes responsibility at a decisive place in the organisation committee and also the occupation of the position of the event director in the person of its President Joel Lautier (France). Before, the world association FIDE had already recognised Vladimir Kramnik as the Classical World Champion in Prague on May 06, 2002 and respected the match between Kramnik and Leko as the Classical World Chess Championship. CET Team, 17/08/2004 THE FOURTEEN CLASSICAL WORLD CHAMPIONS 1 Wilhelm Steinitz Emanuel Lasker Jose Raul Capablanca Alexander Alekhine Max Euwe Alexander Alekhine Mikhail Botvinnik Vasily Smyslov Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Tal Mikhail Botvinnik Tigran Petrosian Boris Spassky Robert J. Fischer Anatoly Karpov Garry Kasparov Vladimir Kramnik

23 GAME 1 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 1. LEKO - KRAMNIK PETROFF DEFENCE - C42 Defending Champion Vladimir Kramnik has got off to a flying start in his defence of the title, winning the first game with the black pieces. Playing the ultra solid Petroff Defence, the game livened up when Kramnik was forced to sacrifice his queen for rook and bishop. Most spectators, including myself thought that White had some advantage, but it quickly became clear that the black position was very solid, and in the post game press conference the players agreed that result of the game should be a draw. Leko said that one of his problems was that the position after twenty-seven moves reminded him of a Grünfeld which he loves to play as Black and he found this psychologically difficult. 1.e4 e5 2. f3 f c6 3. b5 f6, the Berlin variation of the Ruy Lopez, allowed Kramnik to neutralize Kasparov in London This is the same defensive idea (counter attack on e4) and also the same philosophy with black pieces. He chooses a very solid defence, not too analysed which offers very little chances to get some advantage for White. And now, just a few improvements will be enough to make a good defence for the whole match. It is important to observe that Kramnik played the Petroff some years ago and quite exclusively the Sicilian in his last tournaments. This is an old trick to keep hidden his preparation {EN}. 3. xe5 d6 4. f3 xe4 5.d4 d5 This position looks like a French, exchange variation, with a difference: Black installed a knight on d4. As the French exchange is considered as an inocuous weapon (for big grandmasters), White has to demonstrate that the black knight is misplaced to clame for an advantage. The stronger plan here consists to undermine the support (d5) of this knight with the move c4 {EN}. 6. d3 c6 This is the active version (and certainly the best one) of this defence. The knight c6 pressurizes the center (d4) and allows the light-square bishop to aim g4, for example. On the other hand, this knight will be misplaced if the d5-pawn disappear and could be brushed away by the thrust d4-d5 {EN} e7 8.c4 Considering the gambit 8... g4!, 8. e1 is not better {EN} b f6 is a solide alternative {EN}. 9. e2 White preserves is best minor piece {EN} c3 rdb1w4kd 0p0wgp0p wdwdwdwd DwDpDwDw whp)ndwd DwHwDNDw P)wDB)P) $wgqdriw 24

24 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME f5 The main line starts here. Apart from the text move, e6 introduce the old main line, but Black encountered difficulties with the powerful 11. e5!? {EN}. 11.a3 11. e5 is now refuted with 11...c5! and thanks to the position of the light-square bishop, the central knight stay protected if White takes in d5 {EN} xc3 12.bxc3 c6 13. e1 This move to take possession of the e-file and pressure the bishop at e7. In fact, after exd5 and the recapture with the queen, White has the possiblity to drive out the queen with c4 and then the knight (d4-d5) which could leave the king s bishop without protection. So, the two next theoretical moves are to protect this piece {EN} e f6 is also popular, 14. f4 a5 15.cxd5 xd5 16. e5 b3 17. d2 xe5 18. xe5 c4 19. f4 xe5=, Adams-Bologan, 2004 {JC}. 14.cxd5 Very often, White plays here 14. f4 with the variant 14...dxc4 15. xc4 d6 16. xe8+ xe8 17. g5 g6 18. xd6 cxd6 19.h4 threatening h5, e7 20. g4 h6 21. h3 and this position is slightly better for White even if Black can maintain equality ( e4 or f6) {EN} xd5 15. f4 ac8 16.h3 Kramnik himself played this move against Anand. There are some other direct options : 16. d3 (Leko-Anand in 2003) d7 17. b1 xd3 18. xd3 b6 19.d5 f6 20.c4 and White is slightly better ; 16.c4 (the more agressive) e4 17. e3 and Kramnik equalized with the novelty c2! (17... f6 was knowned) 18.d5 a5 19. d4 xd1 20. exd1 d7 21. d2 f6 22. xa5 xd4 23. xd4 xe2 and the draw was concluded in the third game of this present match. Leko declared: I got the sensation to conduct black pieces. {EN}. So far, we are still well inside theory. 16.h3 is an interesting psychological choice by Leko, as it was Kramnik s own choice when he played against Anand in Corus 2003 {JC}. wdrdrdkd 0p0wgp0p wdndwdwd DwDqDbDw wdw)wgwd )w)wdndp wdwdb)pd $wdq$wiw e f6 was Anand s choice but after 17. h2 a5 18. d2 cd8 19. f3 h6 20. g4 xg4 21.hxg4 g5 22. xg5 hxg5 and then according to Huzman White could have got a clear advantage by 23. c1 xe xe1 f8 25. b1 e8 26. c1 {JC}. 17. e3 a5!? This move is a novelty prepared by the World Champion cd8 allowed Bologan to draw against Leko just a few weeks ago: 18. d2 g6 (18... xg2? 19. c4!) 19. f3 d7 20. a4 e5! 21. xd7 xf xf3 xd7= {EN}. As Leko said after the game, this move is provocative, and White takes up the challenge {JC}. 18.c4 Forcing matters. 18. d2 was also possible as the g-pawn could not be captured: xg2 19.c4 c6 20.d5+- g6 21. h5 f xg6 xd1 23. f5! {MP}. After 18. d2!? Black should play f5! 19. a4 c6 with only a slight advantage for White (19...b6!?) {EN} xc4 19. xc4 xc4 20. d2 d5 21. xe4 xe4 22. g5 Now Kramnik has to sacrifice his queen but it looks as he has it all prepared {MR} xe1+ It is impossible to protect the bishop at e7 {EN}. 23. xe1 xg5 24. a5 wdrdrdkd 0p0wDp0p wdwdwdwd!wdwdwgw wdw)wdwd )wdwdwdp wdwdw)pd $wdwdwiw f6 This looked very dicey for Black but now it looks as if Kramnik had obviously predicted it all. He has a solid enough structure and if he can somehow secure his queenside pawns he might have a blockade. However at this stage most people thought that White looked to have the better chances {JC} f4 25. xa7 b6 was an alternative suggestion, aiming for a complete blockade. At first sight move observers figured this was the plan. After all Kramnik is now famous for sacrificing his queen for a blockade. Kramnik had used very little time and it seems the whole idea had been prepared at home {MP}. An agressive option, Kramnik is playing for a win! If f4 25. xa7 b6 it would be a good bargain for White to trade a pair of rooks and their a-pawn with the pawn at b6, they would stay with and against where Black is just waiting the draw, e.g. leaving the bishop at d6, the rook at e7 and the king at g7 after g7-g6 {EN}. 25. xa7 c5 25

25 GAME 1 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND But now this method causes White far more problems because Black gets a passed c-pawn. The down side is the white passed a-pawn but this is more than outweighed by the mobility of the c-pawn and a nice anchor square for the bishop on d4. Good stuff from Kramnik he could have played safe and made a draw with Black {MP}. wdrdrdkd!pdwdp0p wdwdwgwd Dw0wDwDw wdw)wdwd )wdwdwdp wdwdw)pd $wdwdwiw 26. xb7 xd4 The past c-pawn is supported by black pieces but White has a past a-pawn and a queen against rook and bishop {EN}. 27. a2 c4 28. e2! ed8 Kramnik naturally saw that 28...c3 was not a good idea for example 29. xe8+ xe8 30. d7 b8 31. xd4 c2 32. d2! when Black s back rank problems stop him from playing b1+ and c1 {JC}. 29.a4 Played instantly by Leko. 29. d2 with the threat xd4 looks safer but Leko must have been playing for the win 29...c3 [29... f6 Vladimir Kramnik had a novelty up his sleeve xd8+ xd8 31. c6 c3 32.a4 h6 33.a5 d2 34.a6 d4 [34... a2 35. f1! c2 (35... d4? 36. e8+ h7 37. e4+ g6 38. xd4 c2 39. c3+-) 36.a7 xa7 37. c8+ h7 38. xc2+ should be a draw} 35.a7 xa7 36. xc3 xf2 will be drawn] 30. xd4 c2 31. xd8+ xd8 32. c7 d h2 c1 34. b8+ is similar to the above note {MP}. If 29. d2 c3?? loses after 30. xd4 which is easy to calculate and the line f6 30. xd8+ xd8 31. c7 c3 32.a4 g6 33.a5 d2 34.a6 c2 35.a7 d h2 with an obvious draw is easy to calculate too {MG}. wdr4wdkd DQDwDp0p wdwdwdwd DwDwDwDw PDpgwDwD DwDwDwDP wdwdr)pd DwDwDwIw 29...c3 30. e4 b6! 31. c2 Well, I was probably wrong about White being better and now the position is starting to look quite pleasant for Kramnik. The queen does not look happy blockading the c-pawn and there are ideas such as a5 and d2, possibly after some prophylaxis like g6 and g7. Clock times at this point : Leko - 11 minutes to reach move forty, Kramnik - just over half an hour {JC}. wdr4wdkd DwDwDp0p wgwdwdwd DwDwDwDw PDwDwDwD Dw0wDwDP wdqdr)pd DwDwDwIw Frederic Friedel, ChessBase 31...g6 Black has quite a good position, and Leko was behind on the clock here as well {MR}. 32. b3 d6 33. c2 After the game, Leko was critical of his play around this time, and said that once he reached this position, he began to immediately look for ways to bring his queen back to e4 {JC}. 26

26 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 1 wdrdwdkd DwDwDpDp wgw4wdpd DwDwDwDw PDwDwDwD DQ0wDwDP wdrdw)pd DwDwDwIw a5 Black is aiming the d2 square. As usual, the collaboration between Kramnik s pieces is perfect {EN}. 34.g4 d2 35. g2 cd8 36. xc3 Giving some material to free himself. But now Black can aim to double up against the a-pawn, and win it - he should be able to do this. Then the two rooks against queen ending is nice for Black, although maybe White can hold as it will be difficult for Kramnik to infiltrate with his rooks without allowing a perpetual {JC}. 36. c1!? b2 37. c4 dd2 38. c5 is very scary but b6 39. xc3 xf g3 seems OK (40. h1 h2#) {MP}. Crucial but doubtful c1!? b2 37. c4 dd2 38. c5 looks better for White, b6 39. xc3 xf g3 {EN} xc3 37. xc3 White obtains an ending with + 4 pawns against pawns. Theoretically, due to the classic evaluation where a queen is equivalent to nine pawns as a rook is five, the position is more or less equal... But here the two rooks are stronger. Connected, they can attack the white pawns (a first and then f), as the queen can only dream to an hypothetic perpetual check {EN}. wdw4wdkd DwDwDpDp wdwdwdpd DwDwDwDw PDwDwDPD Dw!wDwDP wdw4w)kd DwDwDwDw d5 First, Blacks wants to take the a-pawn, threatening a8, after what they will need only to attack one of the kingside pawns for a win, as the ending three pawns against two is always winning (excepted rare exceptions) {EN}. 38. c6 a5 39. g3 da8 40.h4 5a6 41. c1 An ending, with exactly the same material balance as this one, and with all the pawns on the same files, occurred in Gurgenidze-Averbakh USSR Championship 1961, and it saw the rooks triumph over the queen. However in that game the defending side s pawns were placed worse than here. Thanks to Susan Polgar for pointing this out on ICC {JC}. rdwdwdkd DwDwDpDp rdwdwdpd DwDwDwDw PDwDwDP) DwDwDwIw wdwdw)wd Dw!wDwDw a5 Black prevents h5-h6 with complications {EN}. 42. h6 xa4 43.h5 4a5 44. f4? Probably the decisive mistake. After the game, Kramnik agreed in an interview with Yuri Vasilyev that this move was a decisive mistake, and confirmed that Leko missed Black s 45th {MG}. 44.hxg6 was necessary to prevent what happens in the game {JC} g5 45. f6 rdwdwdkd DwDwDpDp wdwdw!wd 4wDwDw0P wdwdwdpd DwDwDwIw wdwdw)wd DwDwDwDw 45...h6! The point is that White can t capture the pawn. Now the ending is winning for Black according with the simple plan: a rook at f4, a rook at f6, king at g7 (to avoid checks) and the fall of the f-pawn will be decisive {EN}. 46.f3 46. xh6 is not possible because of a6; 46.f4? a f2 a f3 8a e4 a d3 2a e2 b3 52. f5 {CB}; 46. xh6?? 8a6 + {CB} a6 Kramnik s basic plan is to get a position with his king on g7 and rooks on squares such as f6 and f4, winning the f3-pawn and the game. It is incredible to watch the inexorable way which the World Champion carries out the idea {JC}. 27

27 GAME 1 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND The event did not start too well for me yesterday, when I arrived at the playing venue and found that I had foolishly left the cable for my laptop at my hotel, and had to endure a 20 minute walk there and back to retrieve it. Such mistakes happen though and are forgivable - what was not forgivable was that I then proceed to do exactly the same thing today! Still, at least the fact that I am travelling home tomorrow will allow me to avoid a three time repetition! JAMES COLEMAN, The Week in Chess rdwdwdkd DwDwDpDw rdwdw!w0 DwDwDw0P wdwdwdpd DwDwDPIw wdwdwdwd DwDwDwDw 47. c3 a4 48. c6 8a6 49. e8+ g7 50. b5 4a5 51. b4 d5 52. b3 ad6 53. c4 d3 54. f2 a3 55. c5 a g3 f6 57. b4 aa6 58. g2 f4 59. b2+ af6 And there we have it. Leko could safely resign now but plays on for a few moves to see if it is really true {JC}. 60. e5 xf3 61. a1 f1 62. c3 1f g3 2f xf3 xf xf3 f6 0-1 It goes without saying that this is the worst possible start from Leko. Needing to win the match, as Kramnik retains the title in the event of a tie, after the Champion convincing display today, it s clear that the Hungarian has a mountain to climb {JC}. Albert Vasse Locked in a soundproof cabin at the back of the hall, with an ample supply of coffee: commentators GM Artur Jussupow and GM Helmut Pfleger. ChessBase 28

28 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 2 2. KRAMNIK - LEKO CLOSED RUY LOPEZ - C88 Anyone who was expecting a cast-iron draw by challenger Peter Leko, who had the black pieces after yesterday's traumatic loss, was pleasantly surprised. The 24-year-old Hungarian chose a very sharp line in the Closed Ruy Lopez, the first time between both players on the board. "I decided to play a double-edged opening and see whether Vladimir was feeling frisky," Peter said after the game. If the Classical World Chess Champion started to press for a win there he would have had an opportunity to go astray. And Peter would have been ready to pounce. After 18 moves, however, Vladimir Kramnik offered a draw, and Peter Leko accepted. The score is now 1.5:0.5 in favour of Kramnik. 1.e4 Despite the fact that Vladimir has been playing 1.e4 a fair bit lately, this was still a mild surprise for some. After victory in the first game it was thought that he may start to play it safe {JC}. Unlike Leko, Kramnik plays e4 and d4 openings almost equally often these days. Leko, like Fischer, is e4 only {CB}. 1...e5 Already something of a surprise from Leko, who is practically married to the Sicilian. (Don't tell his wife, who is Armenian.) {CB}. 2. f3 c6 3. b5 a6 So, no Berlin Wall from Leko (unfortunately in my opinion although I accept most won t agree!). However it is fascinating to see how Kramnik reacts when faced with his own weapon {JC}. The only time Leko has played the Spanish in the past few years he played the fashionable 3... f6, 4... c5 variation {CB}. 4. a4 f e7 6. e1 b5 7. b h3 This, along with 8.a4, tends to be categorized as an "anti-marshall" move instead of the standard c3. After 8.c3 Black can play the Marshall Gambit with 8...d5!, taking the initiative and entering one of the most analyzed systems in chess. The 1.e4 world of GMs can be divided into those who will allow the Marshall and those who won't. It's safe to say nobody plays 8.h3 because they are afraid of 8.c3 d6 {CB} b7 9.d3 e8 9...d6 is the main line, 10.a3 a5 (10... b8 11. bd2 bd7 12. f1) 11. a2 c5 12. c3 c6 {CB}. 10. c3 Kramnik had this position last year against Anand in Dortmund and went for 10.a3 c5 11. c3 d6 12. d5 h6 13.c3 a7 14. e3 xe3 15. xe3 d7 16. a2 e7 17. xe7+ xe7 18. h2 f6 19. g4 ½-½, Kramnik-Anand, Dortmund 2004 {CB} b4 Already we have an unusual position on the board, which has only been seen once before, with Leko on the white side of things last year in his Monaco Blindfold game against Ivanchuk {JC}. Provocative play from Leko, and he admitted as much after the game. He said he wanted to see if Kramnik was feeling frisky with White, something he might be able to exploit. Since the game was drawn eight moves later we'll assume a low level of friskiness. According to the MegaBase, this 29

29 GAME 2 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND move has only been played once before: by Ivanchuk in Monaco, against Leko! {CB} h6 11.a3 c5 12. e3 d4 13. a2 d6 14.b4 b6 15. xd4 exd4 16. e2 ½-½, Bologan-Onischuk, Cap d'agde rdw1rdkd Db0pDp0p pdndwhwd DpDw0wDw wgwdpdwd DBHPDNDP P)PDw)PD $wgq$wiw 11. g5 The above mentioned game continued 11. d2 a5 and was a fairly long, albeit uneventful draw: 12. d5 xb3 13. xf6+ xf6 14.axb3 f8 15.c4 b4 16. h2 e6 17. f3 a5 ½-½, Leko-Ivanchuk, Monte Carlo Kramnik s next move seems to be new, although I was considering it just before he actually played it. If instead 11. g5 d4 should secure Black comfortable equality {JC}. The attack on f7 gains a tempo to play f4 {CB} f8 12.a3 "Give me the bishop or give me a tempo gain by retreating it." This also creates a hiding spot for the bishop. {CB} xc3 13.bxc3 White has the two bishops, and the doubled c-pawn might aid in central expansion with d4 {CB} a5 14. a2 c5 The standard plan of queenside expansion, Peter's is still doing fine. Wife Sophie and her mother Marina (standing) follow the game with Hungarian WGM Zsuzsa Veröci in the press room. Frederic Friedel, ChessBase although sometimes the knight goes back to b8 to head to d7 {CB}. 15.f4 Temporarily giving up a pawn to gain a push in the center {CB} exf4 rdw1w4kd DbDpDp0p pdwdwhwd hp0wdwhw wdwdp0wd )w)pdwdp BDPDwDPD $wgq$wiw 16.e5 16. xf4 is the obvious move then Kramnik mentioned the possibility of 16...c4 blunting the important light squared bishop which he assessed as fine for Black h6 is what Leko said that he would have played and gave the line 17. f3 d5 with an equal position. But I wonder if it would be possible to continue in hackers mode with 17. xf7 xf7 18. xf7+ xf7 19.e5 when one line is d5 20. h5+ g8 21. xh6 with a rook and two pawns for two pieces since 21...gxh6 is impossible g6+ h8 23. xh6+ g8 24. e4 wins {JC} d5 17. xd5 17. h5?! h6 18. e4 (18. xd5 hxg5 19.c4 bxc4 20.dxc4 xd5 21.cxd5 f6 22. b2) 18...c4 {CB} xg5 Kramnik mentioned xd5 18. h5 h6 19. xf4 hxg5 20. xg5 intending f6 with a messy position {JC}. 18. xb7 ½ ½ rdwdw4kd DBDpDp0p pdwdwdwd hp0w)w1w wdwdw0wd )w)pdwdp wdpdwdpd $wgq$wiw xb7 19. f3 g3 20. xg3 fxg3 21. f4 is simply equal. Of course we'd like to see every game played out to bare kings, but White has no advantage on the board and Kramnik saw no chance of creating one in this position against Leko. White quickly gets back the pawn. An easy draw with Black against Kramnik is no small thing, but every half point suits Kramnik because he is up a point (really two points because Kramnik keeps the title if the match is drawn) {CB}. 30

30 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 3 3. LEKO - KRAMNIK PETROFF DEFENCE - C42 The third game of the Dannemann World Chess Championship ended in a disappointing draw after 23 moves. Playing the black side of a Petroff, Kramnik produced a novelty with c2. Peter Leko sank into a 40-minute think, without being able to find anything for White. The two traded pieces and the game was drawn. 1.e4 e5 2. f3 f6 Before the match started many hoped to see some battles in the Sveshnikov Sicilian, but for the moment, Kramnik shows some excellent preparation in the Petroff Defence {MG}. 3. xe5 3.d4!? 3...d6 4. f3 xe4 5.d4 The dynamic modern line as opposed to the old main line 5. e2, which is much more drawish. Mostly thanks to Russian-German GM Artur Jussupow (a commentator at the match, conveniently enough) the world needed a way to get better winning chances against the Petroff. Now there are main lines with piece sacrifices! {CB}. 5...d5 6. d3 c e7 8.c4 Undermining the knight's outpost {CB} b4 9. e2 If you want to attack you have to keep pieces on the board. This retreat gives Black a tempo, but White doesn't want to give up a bishop for a knight so early {CB} c3 f5 Black also follows a plan of rapid development {CB}. 11.a3 xc3 12.bxc3 Exchanging gives White a pair of dangerously mobile pawns in the center. His pawn structure is less intact than Black's, and so more vulnerable in several ways. That's more in the long run, however, and the mobile pawns can cause trouble if they get moving {CB} c6 13. e1 This sharp move gave new life to this variation and it has been quite popular in the past few years. Kasparov used it against Adams in Linares a few years ago and that game can be considered a model. White has two mobile pawns and he must play aggressively. To generalize, Leko likes to play for small advantages, so this line may not suit him that well. 13.cxd5 xd5 14.c4 (14. f4 a5 15. xc7 ac8 16. xa5 xa5 17.c4) e4 15. e3 {CB} e8 14.cxd5 xd5 15. f4 ac8 16.c4 This is a new move, but only for this match. Leko deviates from game 1 {MG} e4 17. e3 wdrdrdkd 0p0wgp0p wdndwdwd DwDwDbDw wdp)qdwd )wdwgndw wdwdb)p) $wdq$wiw c2!? A simple but in some way amazing novelty. 31

31 GAME 3 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND THE ROAD TO BRISSAGO ChessBase Beautiful scenery, fields and mountains, a premonition of things to come... Getting there is half the fun, we are told of many areas of human endeavor and recreation. This unfortunately was not completely true about our trip to Brissago, which started with a four a.m. wake-up in Hamburg, Germany. The next steps: five a.m. departure, six a.m. arrival at the airport, seven a.m. flight to Zurich, eight-thirty arrival there. We have now taken residence on the banks of the magically beautiful Swiss Lago Maggiore. FRIEDRICH FRIEDEL, ChessBase Starting from Linares-2002 this position has occurred in nine games and those players conducting Black (including Karpov, Adams, Gelfand and Motylev) have always opted for f6. Among those players conducting White have been Kasparov, Anand, Svidler and Shirov; so one may guess that Kramnik s invention can have certain importance for the theory of the line {MG}. New on the board, but not in our hearts. Back when Garry Kasparov was preparing for Vladimir Kramnik for the London 2000 World Championship match, this move was under consideration even before the now-popular f6. After all, Kramnik is known for his misogyny, always wanting the queens off the board! If the move itself wasn't a big surprise, Leko's long think was. Soon he was again an hour behind on the clock, just like game one. It's a very bad sign for his preparation. Not to have looked at this natural move can be considered a blunder {CB}. 18.d5 Leko thought on this move for 50 minutes {MG} a5 19. d4 19. xc2!? xc2 20. d4 leads to acute lines, which certainly were prepared by Kramnik at home {MG} xd1 19. xa7? b6µ {CB}. wdrdrdkd 0p0wgp0p wdwdwdwd hwdpdbdw wdphwdwd )wdwgwdw wdwdb)p) $wdq$wiw 20. exd1 20. axd1 d7 21. d2 b6! 22. xa5? bxa5 is good for Black, his pair of bishops works nicely, and after 23. d3 he will fix White s a-pawn on a3 by...a5-a4 {MG} d7 White has space and central control, Black has good squares like c5 and f6 for his pieces, 32

32 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 3 exploiting the weak squares created by the advanced pawns. Unless White can make something of his initiative, those pawn weaknesses could be a serious problem. Frustrated, Leko embarks on a piece-trading sequence and a short draw {CB}. 21. d2 wdrdrdkd 0p0bgp0p wdwdwdwd hwdpdwdw wdphwdwd )wdwdwdw wdwgb)p) $wdrdwiw The work of one of the world's neatest Grandmasters f6! The simplest. After 21...b6, 22. xa5 bxa5 is better for White than the previous line, but he hardly could fight for advantage here; 23. c6!?= {MG}. 22. xa5 xd4 23. xd4 xe2 ½-½ And the players agreed to a draw; the position is totally equal {MG}. ChessBase VLADIMIR KRAMNIK: «TWO SHORT DRAWS DO NOT SHOW LACK OF FIGHTING SPIRIT» Russian newspaper Sport Express published a brief interview conducted by Yuri Vasiliev with Vladimir Kramnik after game 3, when he drew with Black. We would like to translate part of that interview: What can you say about today s game? We are both well-prepared with Black, there is a powerful theoretical fight. For the second time Leko falls for my home preparation and cannot get anything with White. Taking into account the match situation, a short draw suited you? When playing Black, my task is to equalize the game. And I did it. It might be possible to get more, but Leko sensed the danger and found 21. d2. At the short press conference one could feel the sense of disappointment about two short draws... Modern chess is such that a good novelty from Black does not allow White to play for a win. Two short draws do not show lack of fighting spirit. It s a reflection of the surprise factor - in game 2 Leko employed the Ruy Lopez and today he faced a very strong novelty from me. Now our teams will start working at full capacity and the middle of the match should be very interesting! The same website published an opinion of GM Artur Jussupow on short draws: I think players should not be allowed to agree a draw before move 40. It would not do any harm if they made another 20 moves before leaving the hall. Short draws are damaging the image of chess. From Kramnik s point of view to draw with Black in this match is a good result, but chess fans that came to watch two great players, were disappointed. And the organisers cannot be happy either. Chess Today 33

33 GAME 4 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 4. KRAMNIK - LEKO CLOSED RUY LOPEZ - C88 Game four of the Classical World Chess Championship ended in a draw after 43 moves. Unlike the previous two games it was hard-fought, with challenger Peter Leko pushing for a speculative advantage with the black pieces and then almost losing the game. In the end Vladimir Kramnik was unable to cash in on the extra pawn in the rook ending and had to concede a draw. 1.e4 e5 2. f3 c6 3. b5 a6 4. a4 f e7 6. e1 b5 7. b h3 b7 9.d3 d6 In the 2nd game Leko opted for 9... e8 {MN}. 10.a3 An essential move; White saves the bishop from being exchanged {MN}. Kramnik's scoresheet at the start of game four. ChessBase d7 A rare continuation. In the line a5 11. a2 c5 White usually develops his queen s knight to c3 12. c3 aiming at the d5 outpost; while after b8 it lacks sense as the d5 square can be covered by c7-c6, therefore White plays 11. bd2. Another popular plan begins with d7 and later on the knight often goes to d8. In all these lines knight s retreat serves to free the lightsquared bishop and the c-pawn to fight for the central squares. There is one more path for the knight which Leko actually bears in mind. But he wants to see the white knight s development at c3 first {MN}. 11. c3 In case of 11. bd2 Black can carry out the plan b6, f6 and d6-d5 like in the Classical Ruy Lopez line 9.h3 d7. The text move is logical as the d5 square magnetizes the white pieces {MN}. rdw1w4kd Db0ngp0p pdn0wdwd DpDw0wDw wdwdpdwd )BHPDNDP w)pdw)pd $wgq$wiw 34

34 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME d4 12. a2 In Tripoli the rapid game Grischuk-Beliavsky went 12. xd4 exd4 13. e2 c5 14. g3 g6 15. h6 e8 16. d2 c8 17. a2 f6 with comfortable play for Black. The white knight is somewhat misplaced in this variation while in the event of the immediate d4 it could have been transferred via d2-f3 to a more promising position {MN} xf xf3 The problem of the knight c6 doesn t exist anymore. The next problem to solve is the one of the dark-squared bishop {MN} g5 A good positional move that reminds one of a similar manoeuvre in the Modern Sveshnikov (4...e5) or in the line 1.e4 c5 2. f3 c6 3. c3 e5 {MN}. 14. xg5 xg5 15. d5 c6 Of course the exchange on d5 is bad for Black. The black knight couldn t be a match for the powerful light-squared bishop, Fischer s favourite piece. Most likely White would have opened the a-file gaining a significant advantage {MN}. 16. e3 In his turn Kramnik has cleared a path for his c-pawn {MN} g6 17. ad1 ad8 18.c3 White is ready for d3-d4 {MN}. wdw4w4kd DbDnDpDp pdp0wdpd DpDw0w1w wdwdpdwd )w)phqdp B)wDw)PD DwDR$wIw 18...c5! 19. d5 If 19. d5 g7 followed by f6 or perhaps f7-f5. After 19.d4 c4 or 19...exd4 20.cxd4 c4 a double-edged position arises {MN} c8! This withdrawal doesn t mean Leko is yielding to pressure. He just wants to save his bishop {MN}. 20.b4! White s only chance is to take the initiative before Black regroups his forces {MN} b6 21.c4 xd5 22. xd5 The capture with a pawn allows f7-f5 where Black has a sufficient counterplay {MN} e6! After 22...f5 23.exf5 xf5 (if xf5 24. e4 with an unpleasant threat of f2-f4) 24. e3 xe3 25. xe3 cxb4 (or else the e5-pawn falls) 26.axb4 White is better thanks to the open a-file {MN}. 23.bxc5 dxc5 24. b1 wdw4w4kd DwDwDpDp pdwdbdpd Dp0N0w1w wdpdpdwd )wdpdqdp wdwdw)pd DRDw$wIw b8 Black shouldn t give up the b5 citadel bxc4?! 25.dxc4 opens not only the b-file but also the third rank for the white queen. After b8 26. c3! White has a clear superiority {MN}. 25.cxb5 25. c7 is an interesting attempt that requires precise play from both sides 25...bxc4! 26. xb8; after 26. xe6 xb1 27. xb1 (27. xg5? loses to xe h2 c3 promoting the pawn) 27...fxe6 28. e2 c3! White s pawn formation is healthier but Black s extra pawn allows to keep the balance: xb8 27. xe6 w4wdwdkd DwDwDpDp pdwdndpd Dw0w0w1w wdpdpdwd )wdpdqdp wdwdw)pd DwDw$wIw e7! this moves saves the black pawn chain from damage (27...fxe6 28.dxc4 and Black is inferior due to the spoiled pawns and the insecure position of the king) 28. f4 exf4 29. xf4 d8! 30.dxc4 d4 regaining the pawn with an equal position {MN} xd5 26.exd5 axb5 27.d6 b4 Obtaining a counterpart to the dangerous d6 passed pawn {MN}. 28.a4!? The last try to complicate. 28.axb4 cxb4 29. d5 f6 30. xe5 fd8 with an easy draw {MN} fd8 29. d5 f6 Roberto Lampertico reports that in the press conference after the game Leko appeared helpless and a bit angry. He said that during the game he believed it was like having the black pieces. He has followed the opening ideas of very strong players (he nominated Garry Kasparov) to no avail. From now on - he said - "I will play my own moves." Kramnik looked very self confident. 35

35 GAME 4 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND w4w4wdkd DwDwDpDp wdw)w1pd Dw0Q0wDw P0wDwDwD DwDPDwDP wdwdw)pd DRDw$wIw ChessBase 30. xc5 Curiously enough in the event of 30. xe5 xd6 (30... xd6?? 31. e8+) 31. xc5 xd3 32. xb4 xe5! (32... xb4?? 33. e8+ g7 34. f8#) 33. xe5 xb4 they could have got the same ending as in the first game! Of course Kramnik didn t want to end up this way so he preferred to exchange the queens {MN} xd6 31. xd6 xd6 32. xe5 w4wdwdkd DwDwDpDp wdw4wdpd DwDw$wDw P0wDwDwD DwDPDwDP wdwdw)pd DRDwDwIw Metallic and hard: a damsel in the park b3! The last finesse. After xd3 33. b5! White has certain winning chances thanks to the remote passed pawn. Leko s move leaves him with the harmless d-pawn and draw becomes inevitable {MN}. 33. b5 a xb3 xa4 35. b6 d7 36. f6 a h2 d1 38. f3 h5 39.h4 d2 40.g3 g7 41. g2 d1 42. e3 h7 43. f3 d2! ½-½ wdwdwdwd DwDrDpDk wdwdwdpd DwDwDwDp wdwdwdw) DRDP$K)w wdw4w)wd DwDwDwDw White is unable to improve the position. Draw agreed. 36

36 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 5 5. LEKO - KRAMNIK QUEEN S GAMBIT - D37 After getting nothing in two 1.e4 games, challenger Peter Leko switched to 1.d4 and a quiet line of the Queen's Gambit, something that the title defender Vladimir Kramnik likes to play himself. Going into the ending a pawn up Leko showed fine form to win the game after six and a half hours and 69 moves and equalize in this championship. 1.d4!? Oh, this is a big surprise! First of all Leko agrees that the Petroff Defence is a very tough opening and he can t refute it or at least get any playable position. So he decides to begin with another hand. But even in his youth Peter almost always played 1.e4 and very-very rarely made any other move. As we know now, Peter s novelty was a great success, and I remembered the Fischer- Spassky match, where the american grandmaster used 1.d4 also almost for the first time in life and also succesfully* {VB} f6 2.c4 e6 3. f3 No, Peter doesn t want to play the Nimzovich Defence 3. c3 b4 {VB}. 3...d5 The Queen s Gambit. Kramnik has often played 4...c6, the Meran Defence. Leko had to do something to change the course of the match. For him it was heading nowhere {JA}. 4. c3 e7 5. f4 Popular set up with the bishop on f4. According to theory the best way for Black here is to prepare c7-c5, after which White could create an isolani on d5 and he will have a small but long-term advantage. The 5. f4 line is probably less played out than 5. g5, so this seems to be a wise choice. Kramnik is clearly focussing on what path to take here while Leko is well prepared. Obviously Kramnik is not totally surprised by a change in strategy from Leko. He knows the outcome of the first four games as well as anyone {JA} e3 c5 Kramnik goes down the main line. No surprises here. This has been played countless times, and the game cannot be said to have taken individual shape so far {VB}. 7.dxc5 xc5 8.cxd5 8. c2!? is more sharp than 8.cxd5, but surely Leko has something in mind. It is natural to recapture with the f6-knight, as it does little good on f6 besides defending the d5-pawn. However Black will usually not exchange queens as well {JA}. * In Letters to the Editor by GM Alexander Baburin of Chess Today 1427 we read : Dear Alex, In CT 1426 IM Vladimir Barsky stated that Fischer played 1.d4 vs. Spassky. This is false. He played 1.c4 four times in 1972 and once in Not once did Spassky reply 1...e5, averting transposition to QP games. Regards, ANTHONY SAIDY, Los Angeles, USA Alex Baburin answered : You are right - indeed Fischer neverplayed 1.d4 vs. Spassky. I guess Vladimir s mistake was caused by the fact that most of those Fischer- Spassky games went 1.c4 e6 2. f3 d5 3.d4, transposing to QGD. I should add that Spiros Ilandzis from Greece also pointed out this inaccuracy in CT 1426 to me. 37

37 GAME 5 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 8... xd5 9. xd5 exd5 rhb1w4kd 0pDwDp0p wdwdwdwd DwgpDwDw wdwdwgwd DwDw)NDw P)wDw)P) $wdqibdr 10.a3 White has to prevent a check from b4. Also he is going to get some space on the queenside {VB} c6 11. d3 This is still main line theory. After 11. d3, White is threatening xh7+ and c2+ winning a pawn. Therefore normal is b6 to get this hanging bishop to a safer square. I do not think that White should be able to create a real pressure on Black in these lines, but the chances for Leko are better than in the Petroff. At least he thinks so {JA} b g4 The Fritz evaluations here are not yet important as it is all opening theory. The computer deals better with short term than long term issues. Fritz evaluations here are based on moves Black should not play like f6 or 12...d g4 is a standard move here. A point is 13. xh7? xh7 14. xg5 xg5! and Black wins material {JA}. 13.h3 The most popular. White would like to play 13.b4 and then a1 a2-d2, putting pressure on d5. Black First, we must meticulously fill out the scoresheet. has fine space and his pieces are active, so White would never win a tactical struggle. What he will try to do is to neutralize Black s activity and then put pressure on the d5-pawn, which is a bit alone in the world, and use the d4-square. In the games where White has played 13.b4 e8 he has always continued with 14.h3. White needs this g2-g4 move to prevent d5-d4, or he has no chance of gaining an advantage {JA} h5 14.b4 The main alternative 14...a6 is actually quite sensible. White no longer has ideas with b4-b5. One game went 14...a6 15. e2 (idea a2-d2) xf3 16. xf3 d4 17.exd4 xd4 18. e3 xd1 19. fxd1 xe3 20.fxe3, Dreev-Chandler, Hastings a few years back. Here Black should be able to make a draw with active play with the rooks. Instead he played fe8?! and e7?!, when White was able to create a weakness with xc6, d6 and ac1 c5. White won that game. Dreev is of course well known for his technique, while Chandler is not. Kramnik would never lose a game in such a manner, and Leko knows it. Therefore he would have to try something more aggressive/complicated. I have just looked through the alternatives in ChessBase 9. White has not yet played anything that makes more sense than 14.b4. In some games he has played 14. c1 or 14. e2, but always with the idea of 15.b4. The Fritz here is run on a 2400 Mhz computer. I have given the engine 600 MB ram to work on. 14. c1 is the computers current choice. It suggested an interesting novelty, 14. c2!? with the idea g6 15. xg6 hxg6 16. fd1. For a brief moment this was given in evaluation. I will not disturb it and ask why it regretted the choice, but it could be that simply xh3!? 15. xh7+ h8 16.gxf3 h4 was good for Black, with ideas like 17. f5 d4!? Fritz is still preferring 14.b4. Second choice is 14. e1 with evaluation. I do not think 14. e1 has ever been played, and also I would not expect to see it played here. And as I uttered those words, the computer dumped the move for 14. g5. For those interested in the evaluations of Fritz: 0.3 is where we no longer calls the position equal, but starts to think White is a little better. 0.6 or 0.7 is when the position becomes difficult for Black. 1.2 is when we talk about a winning position of course represents a pawn. Apparently Fritz thinks 0.25 is when it changes from = to a slight edge. I will stick to as said earlier {JA}. ChessBase 38

38 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME e8 White has a good score in these kind of positions. 57% after e8 in 41 games and 56% after 14...a6 in 16 games {JA}. 15. c1 Kramnik has had this position before in a game against Van Wely, which continued with 15. a2 where Black gets a counterplay after 15...d4 16.g4 d5! 17. b2 g6 18. xg6 hxg6 19.b5 a5 20. xd4 c4 21. b3 g5 22. g3 xd4 23.exd4 d2 24. xd2 xb3 25. xg5 f6, Van Wely-Kramnik, Monte Carlo There can be no doubt that Leko has looked at this game before the match. You do not suddenly after 4 games choose a new match strategy {JA} a6 Now Black couldn t play 15...d4?! due to 16.g4 g6 17. xg6 hxg6 18.b5! for example: e7 19.exd4 d5 20.a4±, Gagunashvili-Sammalvuo, Plovdiv 2003 {VB}. A game Tunik-Kharitonov continued 15...a5 16.g4 g6 17. xg6 hxg6 18.b5 Ne7 19. e5! followed by 20. d4. Here White must have a slight advantage. That he lost the game has little to do with the position though he obviously lost from it... {JA}. 16. xa6!? All this is a modern theory. White exchanges pawns of the queenside to exploit the weak d5- pawn. Often Black is ready to give up his isoliani but after a lot of piece exchanges, and an endgame with 4 pawns vs. 3 on the same flank it could be drawn in many cases {VB}. Why Leko has decided to use so much time finding improvements to standard theory is hard to say. Leko has obviously worked with 1.d4 in his preparation. It is a very natural move for him to play, so it makes sense. But the waste of time here is incredible. Maybe 1.d4 had no other ideas than that of surprise? {JA}. 16. c2 d4! 17.e4 c7 18. xc7 xc7 19. c5 xf3 20. xf3 e7= {CB}. The most dangerous continuation seems to be And now the shocker: 1.d4! 16.g4!? g6 17. xg6 hxg6 and now White has great results (nothing less 18. d3 is the most popular move, when I have four wins and one draw in my database. I really think that White had a chance for an advantage here {JA}) 18. c3 d4 19. d3 d5 20.exd4 e4 21. e3 d8 22. e1 f6, Van Wely- Kasparov, Wijk aan Zee Now theory promises no advantage as far as I can see. Obviously I will need to take a closer look {VB}. My german training partner is also not impressed with this. Fritz shakes his head as computers do... This bishop sacrifice of course looks flashy, but there is no danger for Black in this position {JA}. rdw1rdkd DpDwDp0p BgnDwDwD DwDpDwDb w)wdwgwd )wdw)ndp wdwdw)pd Dw$QDRIw xa6 When people usually talk about matches being boring, it is because of too many draws or too technical play. This match is obviously going to be attacked for this. But here is a real point ChessBase STATISTICS by Reyes 14.b4 : 53 games played between 1982 and 2004 : + 20 ; = 31 ; e8 : 34 games played between 1982 and 2004 : + 12 ; = 21 ; a6 : 15 games played between 1990 and 2003 : + 6 ; = 8 ; a6 : 15 games played between 1982 and 2000 : + 5 ; = 10 ; d4?! : 7 games played between 1992 and 2000 : + 5 ; = 2 ; xa6 : 6 games played between 2001 and 2002 : + 1 ; = 5 ; 0 16.g4 : 6 games played between 1982 and 2000 : + 3 ; = 3 ; a7 : 3 games played between 2001 and 2002 : + 1 ; = 2 ; e6 : 3 games played between 2001 and 2002 : + 0 ; = 3 ; 0 39

39 GAME 5 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND to complain about. The game is boring because in reality: It has not started yet? Sorry, I meant. The game has yet to start! I have 24 games in my database with this position. White s score is an amazing 70% vs. 30%, with 9 wins and no losses {JA}. 17.b5 xa3 18.bxc6 bxc xf3 19. xf3 bxc6 20. xc6 e6 21. xe6 fxe6 22. e5!²; e7 gives White the chance to play 19. g5!? f6 20. f4, when Black should be a little unhappy with the weakening of his kingside {JA}. 19. xc6 This position has been played by players like Karpov and Dreev with White and Anand and Short as Black. White has won a few games, but the overall tendency is towards a draw {JA} a e6 (19...d4? 20. d6±) 20. xe6 fxe6 21. c1! followed by 22. c6 is uncomfortable for Black. White has play against the weak pawns and a good square on e5 for the knight if xf3 then White will not really be unhappy about the weakening of the kingside. Black has no pieces to make him with, and there would be no passed pawns on the kingside anyway e6 20. xe6 fxe6 21. c1 has been played three times. Here Atalik-Short, Ohrid 2001 was a draw after a8 but Atalik writes in his annotations in ChessBase Magazine, that his next move, 22. b2 deserves a?? for a blunder. 22. g5! would have won according to him and if e2 23. b1 is his main point {JA}. After e6 20. xe6 fxe6 21. c1 Black s only move is a6 but certainly this is dangerous for Black: 22. c6 e8 23. c1 xc6 24. xc6 {VB}. With a7 Black willingly goes into an endgame with a pawn less. Obviously he will never win, but he should also not lose {JA}. 20. d6 20. b3 xf3 21.gxf3 c7 22. xc7 xc7 23. xc7 xc7 24. xd5 e5 25. d1 xd5 26. xd5 g6², Malakhatko- Pigusov, Ohrid d7 21. xd5 xd xf3 22.gxf3 xd6 23. xd6 xd6 24. xd6 leads to the game position {VB}. 22. xd6 In my latest book Excelling at Technical Chess, I analysed Leko-Adams from the Candidates tournament in Dortmund 2002 over 10 pages. It is my impression from this game and others by Leko, that he wins a lot of games mainly because he has a stronger technique than the other top grandmasters. Kramnik would be an exception to this. Kramnik won the World Championship in 2000 from Kasparov by being better than the old champion in positions without queens. He frustrated him by drawing with Black in positions where White had chances, but could not win. Later he talked about positions he knew was worse but also knew how to draw. I think he would include the following position among them. The problem for White is that his minor pieces are inferior to the black minor pieces - but to exchange them all would end him in a drawn rook endgame {VB}. On line is 22. xd6 22. xd6 xf3 23.gxf3 c7 24. d1 and after mass exchanges Black should draw without any problems {JA} xd6 23. xd6 Very interesting point: does Black have to exchange his bishop? {VB}. wdwdrdkd DwDwDp0p wgwgwdwd DwDwDwDb wdwdwdwd DwDw)NDP wdwdw)pd DwDwDRIw xf3 Fritz is stable and optimistic. Of course, the machine also thinks that the wrong coloured bishop and a flank pawn is +3 something, when it is actually a theoretically draw. This is the next big challenge for Matthias Feist and the other programmers of Fritz, who has made a chess player out of a bunch of 1s and 0s. Here Kramnik wants to make sure that he finds the absolutely safest way to defend this endgame. He knows that he should not lose and now he will have to find the best defence. At the same time Fritz is happy in koo-koo land, where a pawn can be exchanged for hard currency, while here in the real world, the exchange rate is spiralling down. As said earlier: the element of surprise seems to be the only thing Leko has achieved by 1.d4. When Kramnik played as he has done before Leko was not ready to put real pressure on him {JA}. In the following games Black prefered to play with bishop s pair: d8 24. g3 (24. f4 g6 25. c1 e4 26. c4 d5 27. b4 c5 28. b5 c8 29. d2 e6 30. e4 f8 31. d6! f5, an only move, because in other case the knight will be much stronger than bishop during the play on one flank, 32. xf8 fxe4 33. c5±, White has an extra pawn and opponent s pawns e4 and g7 are weak, Istratescu-Malakhatko, Patras 2002) c5 25. c1 f8 26. d4 g6 27. c7 h6 28.h4 e8 29. b5 b8 30. c3 e8 and 84 moves later Black made a draw (Karpov-Anand, Moscow 2002) {VB}. It looked to me as if Karpov one of the greatest endgame experts ever was unable to pose real problems to Anand. He would manoeuvre on and on, but not really improve his position. Kramnik is very patient and have no problem defending, so a so called psychological advantage does not exists here. At least that is my evaluation {JA}. 24.gxf3 d8 Bishop is going on the long diagonal {VB}. 25. b1 f6 40

40 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 5 wdwdrdkd DwDwDp0p wdwgwgwd DwDwDwDw wdwdwdwd DwDw)PDP wdwdw)wd DRDwDwIw 26. g2 Formally speaking this move is a novelty. 26. b5 g6 27.f4 d8 28. b4 h5 29. g2 d1 30. a5 g7 31.f5 gxf5 32. xf5 g6 33.e4 d8 34. c3 d3 and Black holds this position (Gritsak-Kruppa, Alushta 2002). As we could see, the plan with f4-f5 is quite unpleasant for Black but maybe not too much. Leko finds another idea {VB} g6 27.f4 It seems hard to believe that Black should be in trouble here. But maybe White s chances are increased by the doubled pawns, as this gives him an extra pawn in the centre. In Jobava-Vokarev, Istanbul 2003, White won a similar endgame, but I think this was because Black advanced his g- pawn. This is against normal strategy for defence and not something I would expect Kramnik to do. Bouaziz-Olafsson, with the same structure, but with reversed colours ended a draw in 150 moves. Here Black (equivalent of White here) got to an endgame with + vs. (no pawns), which is drawn, but hard to hold. Golod won this endgame against Ludden, but on time, so that has no relevance. Looking through these games I see that White does not have some pressure here, but still not enough for a winning advantage {JA} g7 28. b7 e6 29. d7 e8 30. a7 e6 31. c5 c6 32. a5 c3 33. b5 wdwdwdwd DwDwDpip wdrdwdpd DRGwDwDw wdwdw)wd Dwgw)wDP wdwdw)kd DwDwDwDw a6 Maybe this is an accurate move and better was c8 defending the back rank. The best place for the black rook is e8, while his bishop could slip along the long diagonal. But an endgame is very tricky it s easy to make a mistake here {VB}. 34. b3 f6 35. b8! White threatens to give mate in 3 {VB} h5 36. b5 c a8!? 37. b3 f6 38.e4 a5 39. e3 a4 wdwdwdwd DwDwDpiw wdwdwgpd DwDwDwDp rdwdp)wd DRDwGwDP wdwdw)kd DwDwDwDw 40.e5!? Very responsible decision on the control move! {VB}. It seems to me that Leko did not really believe his position offered real winning chances, as he advanced his pawns before the time control. Usually a player like Leko would try to leave decisions like how to advance the pawns till after the time control {JA} e7 41. b7 f8 42. b8+ g7 43. f3 c4 44. e2 a4 Fritz wants to play 44...f6 here. But this is hardly a move to suit the World Champion. I predict he will wait and see if Leko can find any plan that can disturb him, and prevent f4-f5 followed by f3-f4xf5 to exploit it. Fritz is optimistic for White, but this is far from its favourite area tactics. Those surprised of the many draws in this match have not looked at the statistics between the two players. In my database their common entries gives 76% draws, and I found at least one ChessBase 41

41 GAME 5 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND decisive game that was repeated twice...the fascination in such a match as this is that the games are not individual games like in a tournament, but games that slowly drift from one into the next {JA}. 45. d3 h4 46. d4 w$wdwdwd DwDwDpiw wdwdwdpd DwDw)wDp rdwgw)wg DwDKDwDP wdwdw)wd DwDwDwDw White s plan becomes obvious: Black loses control over the back rank, and Leko begins an attack against the king on g7 {VB} a c2 a d3 a e4 a4 Black has to attack the dangerous bishop {VB}. 50. d5 White could play 50.e6+ immediately but he d like to win some time for thinking {VB} a c6 a4 52. c5 e d5 a e4 a4 55. c8 h4 What White would like to achieve is an endgame where he has h-pawn and rook against bishop. This should win if he does not push the pawn forward too fast. This could be achieved if he managed to advance his f-pawns and exchange them. The h5-pawn would then fall. For this reason Black decided to make a kind of a fortress with f5 and f6. Leko will be able to make it to e6 with the king, but this might be as far as he can make it. Kramnik will keep the bishop on h4 and the king at g8. In positions with the white king on e6 and Black moving between g8 and f8 there is no obvious way to win. Still there might be a way to break the fortress {JA}. wdrdwdwd DwDwDpiw wdwdwdpd DwDw)wDp rdwgk)wg DwDwDwDP wdwdw)wd DwDwDwDw 56.e6+ Now Black has to give up an exchange, and he couldn t create a fortress after that {VB} f6 57.e7 xd e3 xe7 59. xd4 h4 wdrdwdwd DwDwDpiw wdwdwdpd DwDwDwDp wdwiw)wg DwDwDwDP wdwdw)wd DwDwDwDw 60.f3 f5 In case of f d5, the king is going to e8, and Black loses the f7-pawn {VB}. 61. c7+ f6 Black couldn t stay and wait, if f8 62. d5 g8 63. e6 f8 due to zugzvang 64. c8+ g7 65. b8# and the bishop has to leave the d8-h4 diagonal: g3 66. b7+ h6 67. f7 xf4 68. b6 g5 69. xg6+ h4 70. e6+- {VB}. 62. d5 g3 63. c6+ g7 64. e5 h4 Disaster. wdwdwdwd DwDwDwiw wdrdwdpd DwDwIpDw wdwdw)w0 DwDwDPgP wdwdwdwd DwDwDwDw 65. c7+ h6 66. c4 g7 67. e6 h2 68. c7+ h6 69. f7 1-0 I never believed that a legendary defender like Kramnik would lose this endgame. It looked harmless to begin with. The key to Leko s progress in this game was of course the wonderful small combination around the second time control with 55.e6+ f6 56.e7! Did Kramnik simply overlook this? Or had Leko s progress already been significant enough for him to force this kind of concession? {JA}. 42

42 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 6 6. KRAMNIK - LEKO CLOSED RUY LOPEZ - C88 World Championship challenger Peter Leko is definitely on the offensive. After winning game five to equalize the score today, with the black pieces, he surprised the incumbent Vladimir Kramnik with a pawn sacrifice on move 14. Kramnik demurred and, with a super-model watching, the game soon ended in a draw. 1.e4 e5 2. f3 c6 3. b5 a6 4. a4 f e7 6. e1 b5 7. b h3 b7 9.d3 Once more Anti-Marshall*. rdw1w4kd Db0pgp0p pdndwhwd DpDw0wDw wdwdpdwd DBDPDNDP P)PDw)PD $NGQ$wIw 9...d e8 10. c3 b4 11. g5 etc., Kramnik-Leko, Brissago 2004 (m/2) {VB}. 10.a3 a d7 11. c3 d4 12. a2 xf xf3 g5 14. xg5 xg5 15. d5 etc., Kramnik-Leko, Brissago 2004 (m/4) {VB}. 11. a2 c5 12. bd2 c c8 13.c3 e6 14. xe6 fxe6 15.b4 cxb4 16.axb4 c6 17. b3 d7 18. b2 h6 19. a2 fb8 20. ea1 c8 21. f1 d5, Leko-Anand, Dortmund 2004 {VB}. 13.c3 d7!? This is a novelty, Leko s idea will become clear on the next move. Previously Black played here c8 14. f1 (14.d4 d7 15.d5 a5 16.b3 c7 17.c4 fb8 18. f1 bxc4 19.bxc4 b7 20. d2 ab8³, Lutz- Anand, Bundesliga Playoff 2004) e6 15. xe6 fxe6 16. g3 e8 17. e3 h5 18. xh5 xh5 19. g5 ½-½, Svidler-Anand, Dortmund 2004 {VB}. 14. f1 d5!? rdwdw4kd DbDqgp0p pdndwhwd Dp0p0wDw wdwdpdwd )w)pdndp B)wDw)PD $wgq$niw Like in the Marshall Attack Black offers the e5- pawn! In compensation he will have active pieces, while White s d3-pawn will be weak. Leko played this move rather quickly, so obviously he followed his home preparation {VB}. *GMs Bologan and Shirov are both of the opinion that the line with 8.h3 and 10.a3 (as in game 6) should be named after its inventor Latvian GM Zigurds Lanka. Meanwhile the name 'Anti-Marshall' should be reserved only for the 8.a4 line. Perhaps we can follow this suggestion in Chess Today. MIKHAIL GOLUBEV, Chess Today 43

43 GAME 6 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND CHESS STARS COME TO IZMIR People are discussing the Kramnik-Leko match quite a lot here. Joel Lautier, actually, came to Cesme directly from Brissago, that according to him is simply a wonderful place. Most of the players whose opinion I heard (with their average Elo close to 2700!) agreed that Kramnik was slightly worse in the final position of game 6. Still, it looks more like equality after an exchange on f6 in the final position, followed by the transfer of the white knight to d5. But maybe I am wrong... MIKHAIL GOLUBEV, Chess Today 15. g5 In a tense match situation Kramnik decided to play extra solidly and to analyse 15.exd5 at home. Very reasonable approach. 15.exd5 xd5 16. xe5 xe5 17. xe5 f6 (17... f6?! with idea d6, c6) 18. g5 ae8 19. e3 c7 20.d4 c4 21.a4!?²) 18. e2 ad8 (18... fe8!? ) {VB} dxe4 In case of 15...d4 16.cxd4 cxd4 17. g3 g6 18. c1, White has a bit better chances {VB}. 16.dxe4 c h6?! 17. xf6 xd1 18. axd1 xf6 19. d5²; ad8!? {VB} 17. e3 fd xd1 18. axd1 xe4? 19. xe7 xe7 20. d7+- {VB}. 18. f5 e6 19. e2 f8 20. b1 rdw4wgkd DbDwDp0p pdndqhwd DpDw0NGw wdpdpdwd )w)wdndp w)wdq)pd $BDw$wIw The bishop is going on c2 to defend the d3-square and to prepare a3-a4 (so, White leaves his rook on a1). Here Black has a small spatial advantage. We could wait a tough and interesting struggle, but h6 ½-½ Leko had offered a draw and Kramnik accepted it. Page 37 I mentioned Fischer and his match with Spassky. I m sure Fischer would have played on in this position! {VB} Does 21. xf6 be a possibility? It is a position where the knights are quite good. But I believe in 21. h4. Still having the pin of the knight f6, also g3 with pressure on e5 is an option. Kramnik is not happy with his position. Leko makes normal moves, but Kramnik is thinking all the time. So, a draw. I do not understand Leko. He could have played on without big risk. We must understand the match situation: both are satisfied with a draw today {RK}. 44

44 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 7 7. LEKO - KRAMNIK SLAV DEFENCE - D16 Seven of the fourteen games of the Classical World Chess Championship have been played, the last was a 21-move draw, coming after title holder Vladimir Kramnik surprised his challenger Peter Leko with an unusual move order in the Queen's Gambit Accepted. Leko did not feel at home in the new opening and went for the draw. It's half-time at the Dannemann World Chess Championship in Brissago and the score between Vladimir Kramnik and his challenger Peter Leko is even. Kramnik won the first, Leko the fifth game of the match. If it ends in a tie Kramnik retains his title. The prize fund is one million Swiss Franks. 1.d4 And why not? After his success in game 5 Leko makes Kramnik face the Queen s Pawn again {MP}. 1...d5 2.c4 c6 Immediately varying from the QGD of game 5. Kramnik has plenty of experience in some of the sharpest lines of Slav and Semi Slav {MP}. 3. c3 f6 4. f3 dxc4 rhb1kgw4 0pDwDp0p wdpdphwd DwDwDwDw PDp)wDwD DwHwDNDw w)wdp)p) $wgqibdr 5.a4 5.e4 b5, the Geller Gambit, just does not stand up to the scrutiny of top class players {MP}. 5...e6 A well-forgotten move! The main line now is 5... f5 {VB}. The Week in Chess 45 6.e3 A very modest move, leading to a typical Queen s Gambit Accepted position. When 5...e6 was used in Alekhine-Bogoljubov (1929) and Alekhine-Euwe (1935) World Ch matches, Alekhine played the much more energetic move 6.e4 with great success. Since then Black rarely plays 5...e6. Lets take a look at two classical and one modern games: 6.e4 b4 7.e5 (with a2-a4 played the Vienna variation is not as attractive for White: 7. g5 c5! {AB}) 7... e4 (7... d5? 8. d2 xc3 9.bxc3 b5 10. g5! f6 11.exf6! xf6 12. e2 a6 13. f3 h6 14. h5+ xh5 15. xh5+ d7 16. f7 e8 17. g6 g8 18. f4±,

45 GAME 7 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND Alekhine-Bogoljubow, GER/NLD 1929) 8. c2 a5 (8... d5 9. e2 c xc3 11.bxc3 cxd4 12.cxd4 c3 13. d2 a5 14. xc3 xc3 15. a3 c6 16. xc3 d7 17. b1±, Alekhine-Euwe, NLD 1935 {AB}) 9. xe4 xc d1 b4 11. xc4 d7 12. g4 g6 13. g5 b6 14. f3 f8 15. b3 h5 16. e4 d5 17. g5 d7 18. c1 e7 19. c5! 1 0, Borovikov-Shkuran, UKRch, Simferopol 2003 {VB}. A very clever move order if 6.e4 b4 7. g5 b5 is a sharp line of the Slav which Kramnik knows well and which holds many pitfalls for White {MP}. 6...c5 And now the Queen s Gambit Accepted, a Kramnik speciality but with a twist. Black has lost a tempo c6-c5 but White has used the tempo for the horrible move a4. Well perhaps not so horrible... {MP}. 7. xc4 c cxd4 9.exd4 e7 rdb1kdw4 0pDwgp0p wdndphwd DwDwDwDw PDB)wDwD DwHwDNDw w)wdw)p) $wgqdriw There is the same position in one of the lines of QGA, but here White has played an extra move: a2-a4 {VB}. I believe that this extra move benefits White, sometimes he might get his rook to the queenside via a3. If Black is fine here, we might see more QGA players employing this line! {AB}. 10. e3 Another solid move. White prepares e5 {VB}. Leko's wife Sophie with seconds Vladislav Tkachiev and Vladimir Akopian. 46 A quiet move, e1, f4 and g5 were more active alternatives as was 10. e2 intending d1 would be akin to the main line with a6 and the absence of a6 makes itself felt after xd4 11. xd4 xd4 12. b5! d8 (12... b6 13.a5! not such a useless move after all!) 13. f c7±. Presumably Leko did not want to fight Kramnik on his turf {MP} e5 b4 A normal move trying to hold d5 and also inhibiting the batter with c4-b3-c2 and d1 d3 {MP}. rdb1w4kd 0pDwgp0p wdwdphwd DwDwHwDw PhB)wDwD DwHwGwDw w)wdw)p) $wdqdriw It is a typical isolated queen s pawn position, White has an active play, Black has no weaknesses. Kramnik has more experience with isolated queen s pawn positions, I believe. But comparing with the no advantage positions from the Petroff s Defence, Leko can be satisfied too. I do not like 10. e3 very much. So this was the idea. It was played only one time, from Ubilava, a second of Anand. In Ubilava-Matulovic, Belgrade 1988 followed d5 of Matulovic which looks ugly. Of course, the natural xe5 is not good, after 12.dxe5 xd1 13. fxd1 g4 14. d4 White is clearly better. Maybe d7 is an option or the more active d6. Kramnik has to fight very hard to equalize this position {RK}. 12.a5 I suspect that Leko would be happier to play a4-a3 instead! {VB}. An interesting attempt, aiming for f3 and a6 perhaps dreaming of b3 one day. Black s queenside pawns can also come under pressure due to the cramping effect of the pawn {MP}. As Fritz says, the pair of bishops do not play a big role here and White can play 12. f3 allowing the exchange of his bishop e3. The queen will be targeting b7 and then c2 13. ad1 xe3 14.fxe3 and White has good prospects on the kingside. White has other moves, like 12. e2 but ChessBase

46 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 7 then Black can develop with d7. So Leko has other ideas. He frees the square a4 or he wants to limit the black queen, which now misses the squares a5 and b6. But d7 is possible now, as 13. xd7 would be a very weak move {RK} d7 The bishop is going to c6 and d5 with a strong blockade of d-pawn. So Leko decides to exchange his isolani {VB}. Black can also play 12...a6 {RK}. 13.d5 Leko had used an hour to here and needed to do something. During the game I was more enthused by 13. f3 c2 (13... c6 14. xc6 bxc6 and Black can be very satisfied with this position {RK}) 14. ac1 xe3 15.fxe3 xa5 16. xd7 xd7 17. xb7 looks very solid. But looking at it now I can t think why. Because 13. f3 c6 14. xc6 bxc b3 c6 14.a6 fd5 again looks solid enough {MP}. 13.a6 c6 then White will not take on b7, but Black also must stay {RK} exd5 14. xd5 bxd5 15. xd5 xd g4 16. xf7+ xf7 17. xg4 (17. b3 h5 {Kramnik} 18. xb7 d5 19. xd5 xd5 20. xf7 xf7 21. fc1 f6) xd1 18. xf6+ xf6 19. fxd1 xb2 20. ab1 f6 and White has some pressure {Kramnik}, a good example of what I was referring to above with the a5-pawn {MP} b5 16. xb7! {RK}. 16. xd5 rdw1w4kd 0pDbgp0p wdwdwdwd )wdqhwdw wdwdwdwd DwDwGwDw w)wdw)p) $wdwdriw c8! With 2-3 precise moves Black will soon neutralize the opponent s initiative {VB}. A high class defensive move, I was just thinking that a good player would know what to do. At lower levels this kind of pressure is hard to deal with {MP}. On c6 follows a little trick: 17. xc6! {RK}. There are few attractive points: White is targeting b7 and a7, and he has a pawn on a5. First of all this is a hard decision for Kramnik, as giving the pawn is normally an option. As he has two bishops. But in this concrete position he should keep the pawn b7, because after 17. xb7 White would have the threat 18. c6 {RK}. 17. fd1 17. e4 d6! holds (17... f6? 18. c5 e8 19. fd1 c7 20. d6! c6!? 21. xc6 bxc6 22. ac1²) 18. c4 e8 19. d4 (19. f3 xh xh2 h g1 xc4 22. fc1=) e7 {MP} xd5 18. xd5 e6 19. b5 f6 bishop s pair is very good compensation for White s active pieces {VB}. 20. f3 b6! 21.axb6 ½-½ rdwdw4kd 0wDwDp0p w)wdbgwd DRDwDwDw wdwdwdwd DwDwGNDw w)wdw)p) $wdwdwiw A short game, but an interesting fight. I would say, that 12.a5 and 13.d5 were not enough to create real pressure. Maybe, Leko underestimated c8 {RK}. 21.axb6 axb6 22. e1 (22. xa8 xa8 23.h3 d8!³): fb8=; d8 23. b4 (23. d4 c4 24. b4 b5 is the kind of thing White should avoid) a6 24. c1= with enough activity; a623. xb6 xb6 24. xb6 xb2= {MP}. A question often asked is who will play who after this match. The answer is: nobody really knows. Kasparov and Ponomariov were to play a match last year for meeting the winner of this match. This was called the Prague agreement. Now Kasparov and Kazimdjanov are to play, but FIDE delayed the deadline for offers for that match. So if that will be played is not easy to say. In theory this would unify the chess world, but if the winner here is even legally bound to play the winner of the other match is not clear to most. JACOB AAGAARD, Dannemann website [In case anyone has noticed. My nake is misspelled. It is Aagaard - 4 A's. It is pronounced more or less Ogur - just call me Shrek... I see that I have had a name change during the game. From Aagard to Aagaard. Are those A's multiplying???] 47

47 GAME 8 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 8. KRAMNIK - LEKO MARSHALL GAMBIT - C89 In a stunning 32-move Marshall Gambit, Peter Leko demolished Vladimir Kramnik's preparation and took the lead in their World Championship match Leko accepted the challenge to play the Marshall and then found a flaw in Kramnik's prepared queen sacrifice. Many questions were answered by today's eighth match game. Does Leko have what it takes to beat Kramnik in a match? Is Kramnik's preparation simply unbeatable? Why don't many top players allow the Marshall Gambit with White? (That's "yes", "no", and "because no matter how well prepared you are you may get killed".) In the most exciting game of the match so far, Peter Leko played a beautiful sacrificial attack to take his first lead of the match. Kramnik allowed Leko's favorite Marshall Gambit for the first time and raced through a rare line in his preparation. 1.e4 well, let's see, is there something sharp I can come up with in the Ruy? 48 Leko was using a lot of time, but he was up to the challenge when both players noticed a serious hole in the World Champion's homework. Leko unleashed a brutal attack that scored the full point in 32 moves. Kramnik: "Certainly I'm disappointed, but at the same time I have to say: Peter Leko played a beautiful game." Leko: "I had quite a mixed feeling during the game. But now I m very happy that I won it." {CB}. 1.e4 e5 2. f3 c6 3. b5 a6 4. a4 f e7 6. e1 b5 7. b c3 Oh, the first surprise: Kramnik allows the sharp Marshall attack! The brilliant idea of the American champion Frank Marshall is about 100 years old now, but still nobody has shown how White could get at least a small but stable advantage. Maybe Kramnik and Co know how to do it? {VB}. ChessBase

48 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 8 Playing d3 and a3 and h3 did not achieve a whole lot so far so Kramnik goes into the Marshall proper. Kasparov, who first developed the line properly for his match against Short in 1993 virtually never accepts the pawn {MP}. 8...d5 rdb1w4kd Dw0wgp0p pdndwhwd DpDp0wDw wdwdpdwd DB)wDNDw P)w)w)P) $NGQ$wIw Here it is - Black sacrifices a pawn for a lead in development and active piece play {VB}. Leko s experience with the Marshall is only with the white pieces. It is also a fight in psychology: avoiding the Marshall with White means not getting an opening advantage {RK}. 9.exd5 xd5 10. xe5 xe5 11. xe5 c6 The original idea from the game Capablanca- Marshall, New York 1918, was f6 but this is now thought to be dubious {MP}. 12.d4 Another principal way is 12.d3 {VB}. 12. e1 followed by d3 is possible as is 12.d3 when the rook can emerge again to e4 as in the game. This is a line Leko has played with White for example against Adams at Linares 1999 and Svidler at Dortmund 1998 {MP} d6 13. e1 h4 14.g3 h3 15. e4 An old line credited to the Soviet player Sakharov in the fine book on the Marshall published thirty years ago or so by Batsford and written by Bob Wade and others. Many British players took up the line which was the subject of an article by David Levy suggesting it put the Marshall out of business {MP}. rdbdw4kd DwDwDp0p pdpgwdwd DpDnDwDw wdw)rdwd DB)wDw)q P)wDw)w) $NGQDwIw Young Tigran Petrosian played this move in 1947! White has a lot of alternatives here, but the text move has become rather fashionable in recent years {VB}. 15. d3 f5 16. f1 h5 17. e3 h3 18. d1 f5, Boleslavsky-Bronstein, Moscow 1950 (½-½, 25). 15. e3 g4 16. d3 f5 17.f4 h8 18. xd5 cxd5 19. d2, Euwe-Donner, Amsterdam 1950 (1 0, 42). 15. f3!? e6 (15... g4!? 16. g2 h5 ) 16. g2 h5 17. d1 g6 18. d2 ae8 19. e4 f5 20.f3², Bologan- Naiditsch, Dortmund 2003 (1 0, 36) g f6 16. h4 f5 17. f4 d8? 18. d2 g5 19. c2 d5 20. e4! xe4 21. xe4 xe4 22. xg5 e8 23. xd8 xd8 24. h5 f8 25. e1 e6 26. xh7 e8 27. he4 e7 28.f4 1-0, Stean-Eley, London 1971 {MP}. 16. f1 A move in Kramnik s style: he offers the exchange of queens {VB}. 16. d2 f5 17. e2 f6 18. e5 xe5 19.dxe5 g4 20. f3 ae8³, Petrosian-Averbakh, Moscow 1947 (0 1, 40). 16. e2 f5 17.f3 xe4 (17... f6!?) 18.fxe4 ae8 19. d2 f5 20.e5 f4, Bologan-Onischuk, Poikovsky 2003 (½ ½, 29). Instead of 16. f1 White could play other moves but not 16. xg5? because of f5 + and now g5 is hanging (after changing queens) {RK}. A real surprise and Leko started to fall well behind on the clock again {MP} h5 Logical decision: Leko would like to play a middlegame. It is interesting that Kramnik played very quickly in the first half of the game, while Leko spent a lot of time {VB}. This is the sharper line {RK} xf xf1 f5 [17...f5 18. e1 f4 19. d2 f5 (19... h g1 and e4²) 20.gxf4 ae8 21. f3 h g1²] {MP} 18.f3 h6 19. e1 fe8 20. xd5 cxd5 21. xe8+ xe8 22. f2 a5 23.a3 d3 ½ ½, Peng Xiaomin-Grischuk, Shanghai d2 Maybe Kramnik wants to play f3 only after f5 {RK}. 17. e2 g6 18. e8 f5 19. xa8 xa8 20. d2 d3 21. e1 f4!? Ernst-Hebden, Gausdal 1987 (0 1, 34). 17.f3 f5 18. xd5 cxd5 19. e1 ae8 20. e3 h3 21. f2 f5 22. a3 f4 23.gxf4 gxf4 24. d2 h8 25. h1 xe xe1 g8 27. g1 xg xg1 g h1 d3 0 1, Rodriguez-Krylov, corr EU-ch M f5 18.f3 18. xd5 cxd5 19. e3 ae8 20.a4 h3 21. e1 f5 22.f3 f4 23. xe8 xe8 24. d1 e h1 f2 26.g4 fxg4 27.fxg4 xg4 0 1, Magaranto-Garcia, Oropesa del Mar d1 g6 19. e1 ae8 20. e2 e6 21. f3 d7 22. d1 h3 23. d3 f4 24. xf4 gxf4 25. c2 f6 26. h4 fxg3 27.hxg3 f5 28. xe8 xe8 29.a4 d7 30. h2 g4 31.f3 h5 32.axb5 axb5, Asztalos-Antal, Eger 2002 (½ ½, 37) f6 The first new move of the game, but clearly prepared for by Kramnik, who continued to play quickly {CB}. 49

49 GAME 8 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND Fritz prefers White, but as he is a pawn up, he also sees some compensation for Black. If Black now takes on e4 he wins an exchange, but White will have a clear advantage: xe4 19.fxe4 b6 20.e5 e7 21. e4 and Black has many weaknesses. Not easy for Leko, he has spent already more than one hour of his time and his opponent is still in the preparation. An interesting idea is h8 and f4!? {RK}. Of course, after xe4?! 19.fxe4 White is clearly better: he has a mobile pawn center and a strong bishop pair, while the black king is very weak {VB} xe4 19.fxe4 e3 20. f3 xf3 (20... g4 21. f1 ae8 22. d1!+-) 21. xf3 c4 (21...g4 22. xe3 gxf3 23.e5 e7 24. f1±) 22. xc4 bxc4 23. xg5± {MP} ae8 19. xe8 xe8 20. e4 xe4 21.fxe4 xe4 22. d1 g4 23. f2 e6 24.a4 b4 25. d2 bxc3 26.bxc3 c5 27. b1 cxd4 28.cxd4 c7 29. b7 f6 30. e2 b6 31. d7 xd h1 e3 33. e1, Elyakim-Krempel, corr W-ch e1 ae8 It looks like Black has very good compensation for the pawn, because White has big problems with developing his queenside {VB}. 20. xe8 xe8 For the moment there seems no way for Black's impressive looking force to penetrate so White opens a second front {MP}. 21.a4 White hasn t another way to develop his rook {VB}. Another line is 21. d1 and White can develop his knight to b3. But if White does not play a4, Black has more time for attacking {RK} g b4?! 22. c4 c7 23. d2². Maybe d5 is playable: 22.axb5 f4! 23. e4 h xh3! xh3 25. xf7+! g7 26. xe8 xe4 27.fxe4 xg3! and draw. But White has 22. e4, he gives the pawn back and, maybe, has a little edge. Now White keeps his pawn {RK}. Leko had seen everything here I believe. But now I assumed the idea was the paradoxical 22. e4 {MP}. wdwdrdkd DwDwDpDp pdpgwhqd DpDwDb0w PDw)wDwD DB)wDP)w w)whwdw) $wgwdqiw 22.axb5?! The first step to catastrophe. It looks like better ChessBase A grimly determined Peter Leko spoiling for a fight. 50 was 22. e4 xe4 23.fxe4 xe4 24. xg5 (24.axb5? d3) 24...bxa4 (24... xg5? 25. xf7+) 25. c4 (25. xa4? b8 +) b8 26. e1² but Black has good chances for a draw {VB}. 22. e4 xe4 23.fxe4 xe4 24. xg5 bxa4! {Kramnik} (24... d3? 25. xf7+ xf7 26. xd3 h5 27. h4+-) 25. c4 (25. xa4 b8 26. c4 xg5 now that the rook is not en prise after xf7+) d5 is alright for Black {Kramnik} 26. xd5 cxd5 27. xa6 xg5 28. xd6 e3+ forces a draw although perhaps if I leave Fritz on overnight it will be mate in the morning {MP} d3 This is the point, White has to sacrifice his queen but hey Vlad loves to do that {MP}. 23. f2? Kramnik continued to play quickly and missed something in his calculations. He had to agree for a draw: 23. d1 e2 (23...axb5? 24. a7) 24. c2 d3 25. d1= {VB} e axb5?! 24. d1 White can be satisfied as his rook is in the game {RK}. Kramnik was still playing fast and afterwards said he could see no reason to give Leko any extra thinking time by delaying {MP}. 24. xe2 24.bxa6!? xf2 25. xf2 h6 26. e3 {CB}. There was a funny exchange in the press conference when I asked Leko why not bxa6 xf2 xf2 h5 g1 - good question he replied! well the answer is below. There is no way back for White:

50 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 8 24.bxa6 xf2 25. xf2 h5 26. g1 (26. e3 xa6 27. xa6 xh2) h3! 27.a7 xg3 28.a8 + g7 29.hxg3 xg h1 g4!!, found by Joe Gallagher who was in the audience, 31. xc6 h g1 g3 {MP} xe2 25.bxa6 Fritz sees a clear advantage for White; can it be wrong? b8 has to come, giving a bishop for the a-pawn, then White has rook, bishop and two pawns vs. queen. Well, it looks fine for White and Leko has a problem with his time: 7 minutes for 15 moves... Can it be that Kramnik is still in his preparation? {RK}. 25. c4 xc4 26. xc4 cxb5! xd6 {CB}. wdwdwdkd DwDwDpDp PDpgwhqD DwDwDw0w wdw)wdwd DB)wDP)w w)whbdw) $wgwdwiw d3! Now Black has a decisive attack {VB}. Kramnik s preparation went this far, believing his passed pawn gave him compensation. But White is lost here thanks to some nice sacrificial lines that Leko finds over the board {CB}. It looks like a blunder but this move is completely winning for Black! {RK}. And White can make a queen if he wants, this is an attack with four pieces and a g-pawn. It was shoddy work not to consider this move and even my computer works it out fairly quickly. Without a computer I am sure it would have been foreseen because its the only realistic looking try although Jon Speelman was also eyeing up 25...g4 as well {MP}. 26. f2 It isn t easy to find a playable line for White {RK}. Or 26.a7 e g2 xf xf3 e g1 (29. h3 f1#) g4 30.a8 + g7 +, White hasn t any check and can t defend his king {VB} Kramnik had a long think now but its gone: 26.a7 e g2 xf xf3 e g1 g4 30.a8 + g7 31. xc6 f h1 f g1 f2# is what Team Kramnik missed {MP} xf3! Leko should win this position, even with only 5 minutes left {RK}. 27. xf3 e4+ Also winning: g e1 xf3 29.a7 f d1 e xe3 f c2 xa1 33.d5 c5 + {VB}. 28. e1 After we posted the game analysis on our website, this exchange about the game took place between commentator Mig Greengard and Fritz co-programmer Mathias Feist. Mig: [Regarding 24.bxa6] I have similar lines, I just don't like to give too many eval marks on quick analysis. That was just Fritz's html export way of saying "better is", but it's confusing. I clarified it. The interesting question to me is how Kramnik's preparation missed this when Fritz finds it in 20 seconds. Very strange and maybe even suspicious. The long line with 26.a7, queening with check but losing, confuses Fritz for a little while, but after a few minutes it's all clear. If this weren't a WC match I would suspect the usual GM habit of looking for five seconds with three or four lines on a two-year-old laptop. But I know Vlady must have better hardware for his team. Right? Mathias: I also thought about it. If you have the game it does look strange indeed. But this is just one line of dozens they must have checked while preparing the Marshall. They may have stopped analysis before bxa6 or even before xe2 because the next moves are forced, which would practically hide the discovery of any engine analysis unless you wait for a very long time. The refutation was hidden in the sheer amount of preparation. Leko found it over the board, so it seems. Kramnik relied on his preparation and didn't really work during the game. I think he may have seen the problem over the board, too, if he also would have worked. Of course there's another possibility: they analysed and saw it, but Kramnik forgot he had to play d1 instead of the line actually played. The nice idea with the queen sacrifice was glued to the brain together with a tag that the line is okay, the dreary ordinary stuff was overridden. ChessBase.com, Saturday October 9th wdwdwdkd DwDwDpDp PDpgwDwD DwDwDw0w wdw)ndwd DB)qDN)w w)wdwdw) $wgwiwdw 51

51 GAME 8 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND xc3! xf3? leads only to a draw: 29.a7 f d1 f c2 e b1 d c2 xc3+ 34.bxc3 b b2 f a2 a b1 f c1 b b3 xb b2 d1+ {CB}. 29.bxc3 29. g1 e4 with threat b4+ {VB}. 29.a7 e2# {MP} xc f2 xa1 31.a7 31. xg5 xa6 32. d1 c5 33.dxc5 xc e1 g7 + {CB} h6! Very calm move! {VB}. An amusing echo of game one, where h6 was decisive although of course xa7 also won easily {MP}. 32.h4 32. c4 xa7 33. e3 c5 + {CB} g4 0-1 If 33. e5 xe5 34.dxe5 xa e3 a1 + {CB}. So Leko won brilliantly. His d3!! was very nice and deep calculated. We can hope for more games of this level {RK}. «I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW, THE CHIPS ARE ON» Yesterday we had rain and mist, today was a clear day across the lake and you could see for miles and miles and miles. Unfortunately for Vlad, he saw a long way but not far enough. Oh dear, this contest is not going to be won, its going to be lost. The protagonists are so evenly matched and so strong they don t get outplayed easily, someone has to blunder, on or off the board. As Leko said in his press conference after game seven, he lost the first game in a ridiculous way. Kramnik lost a drawn endgame in game six and now he has lost a drawn opening, the Marshall Attack, in game eight. Leko is ahead for the first time in the match and Kramnik is only thinking of levelling the score to retain the title and no longer of taking the lion s share of the prize fund with a match victory. This is how to lose 21st century style, you don t miscalculate at the board, your nerves don t let you down, you don t fall ill and you don t fall victim to your opponent s preparation. Nowadays it would seem the real danger is having your opponent walk into yours. Before the age of computers new opening ideas were quite regularly refuted at the board but today they often force resignation as with the aid of a computer a player has worked the game out to the end. See for example: JOBAVA-BAREEV, Rethymnon e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3. d2 dxe4 4. xe4 f5 5. g3 g6 6.h4 h6 7. f3 d7 8.h5 h7 9. d3 xd3 10. xd3 gf6 11. d2 e e7 13. e b1 c5 15.d5 exd5 16. xh6 gxh6 17. f5 e8 18. xh6+ f8 19. e5 b6 20. f3 xe5 21. g3 d6 22. f5 xb xb2 c b3 xg3 25.h6 a a4 b xa5 c xb5 ab a4 e4 30. xd5 c a3 b b2 d c3 b Incredible thought it might sound Kramnik, or more likely one of his team switched off the Fritz before it had finished analysing a sharp position from the Marshall Attack and this led him to disaster. After a failure in game six the Anti Marshall needed some repairs so Kramnik allowed the Marshall for the first time in the match and of course he had an idea prepared. Leko was really under pressure when Kramnik produced the rare continuation 15. e4 and 16. f1 which I remember from the 1970s. I recall taking on f1 and playing f5-f4 was supposed to generate enough counter-play back then although thirty years later it does not look quite enough. Anyway the point is moot because Leko s combative h5 which was not only based on sound practical considerations but also proved sound enough, will be the main line. After the game Leko explained that he had to consume a lot of time working out what was an unfamiliar position and: I decided to keep the queens on because if anything went wrong I would keep practical chances. How clever of him. As for Kramnik he pretty much admitted it was an error in preparation but he was very gracious in defeat and said: Of course it is disappointing but it is better to lose this way in a beautiful game that will be remembered in the history of chess. Well it is not really up there for me but Leko s belief in his position was impressive and finding g4!! when he played g6 deserves great praise as well. Put the position after 25.bxa6 into Fritz and you can see how Team Kramnik went wrong, the assessment goes from +6 to 14 plummeting downwards like the Bungy Jump that James Bond made off a cliff around near here (Ticano) in the film GoldenEye. MALCOLM PEIN, The Week in Chess ChessBase 52

52 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 9 9. LEKO - KRAMNIK QUEEN S INDIAN - E15 In this game Kramnik with Black chose the Queen s Indian defence against Leko's 1.d4. The challenger spent a lot of time in the opening, trying to come up with a way to break the defensive wall of the World Champion. In the end, at move 16, he decided to attack in the center with thematic advance e2 e4, but having already spent about 70 minutes he accepted a surprise draw offer by Kramnik. This was the shortest game of the championship so far. 1.d4 Today Kramnik is for the first time in a must win situation. If Leko plays for a win too, we can expect an interesting game. With 1.d4 Leko aims for an opening advantage again {RK} f6 2.c4 e6 3. f3 b6 In the 7th game Kramnik surprised everybody with his opening choice. Today he chooses the Queen s Indian - Leko did play this opening with Black {RK}. 4.g3 a6 5.b3 b4+ 6. d2 e7 rhw1kdw4 0w0pgp0p b0wdphwd DwDwDwDw wdp)wdwd DPDwDN)w PDwGP)w) $NDQIBDR The point of the f8-b4-e7 exercise is that the white bishop is often worse off on d2 than on c1 {VB}. 7. c3 b7 7...c6 8. g2 d5 9.cxd5 exd There are many possibilities: as 11. c2, 11. f4, 11. c1 etc. Probably Leko will not know the theory of this variation, but it is not important here. You can play this position simply with a good understanding of chess {RK}. 11. f4 a6 Now c7-c5 is always a problem because White is targeting d5 {RK}. 12. c2 e8 Probably I was wrong, and Leko is still in his preparation {RK}. rdw1rdkd 0b0wgp0p n0wdwhwd DwDpDwDw wdw)wgwd DPHwDN)w PDQDP)B) $wdwdriw 13. fd1 13. b2 c8 14. fd1 e6 15. ac1 h6 16.a3 c5 17. e3 e4 18. e1 f6 19. xe4 dxe4 20. b1 cxd4 21. xd4 xd4 22. xd4 c5³, Roeder-Aseev, Berlin 1992; 13. ad1 d7 14. e5 ad8 15. g5 g6 16. h3 c6 17. f3 e4 18. c1 xc3 19. xc3 xc3 20. xc3 c5 21. cc1 f6 22. f4 c8, Neverov-Aseev, Frunze

53 GAME 9 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 13...c6 14. e5 Two years ago Kramnik had played this position and won after 14.a3 c7 15. xc7 xc7 16.b4 d6 17.e3 e7 18. b3 ad8 19. e1 h5!? etc., Bacrot- Kramnik, Paris 2002 {VB} h6 Black has a little problem with his pawn on c6, but c8 fails because of 15. h d6 looks normal. I do not understand the idea of 14...h6, maybe it is directed against f4-g5 {RK}. 15.a3 Transpose to a game van der Sterren-Epishin, both specialists of this line. It is not easy to play without a3 {RK} c7 16.e4 I cannot see a really promising alternative to 16.e4. Black wants to play e6 and then what? Maybe 16. c1 and 17. b2. White must not worry about the pawn a3 and can develop the rook a1 to c1 {RK} e6 ½-½ rdw1rdkd 0bDwgp0w w0pdnhw0 DwDpHwDw wdw)pgwd )PHwDw)w wdqdw)b) $wdrdwiw Thanks to James Willis for drawing my attention to the positions of the white king and queen in the logo for the Kramnik - Leko match. "How can we expect Hollywood to get things right if our World Championship conveners can't?" he comments. Perhaps conventions are different for 8x12 (14?) boards. But it's not unique at that level. This is the image below (found in Mesman's De artistieke schaakstudie) on the "First day of issue" envelope at the occasion of the Candidates Tournament in Curaçao, Not only is Black at the bottom, the board's orientation is wrong as well. Note that the diagram cannot have been mirrored unintentionally; knights never face right in diagrams. Open Chess Diary 264 This position is obviously a dead draw! Both Leko and Kramnik can see it very clearly, so they did not waste any more energy here. Lesser mortals played this game for another 40 moves: e6 17. e3 c8 18.b4 dxe4 19. xe4 d5 20. b3 f6 21. g6 f5 22. c3 f6 23. xd5 cxd5 24. d3 c4 25. e5 xe5 26.dxe5 e4!?, van der Sterren-Epishin, Newark 1995 {VB}. But what is wrong with 16...dxe4 then 17. xe4 cd5 18. d2 also about equal. 17.exd5 cxd5 18. e3 is an option with a very small and ideal advantage for Leko who is leading in the match. The danger of losing such a position is not very big. But he can also play 17. e3 first, as 17...dxe4 looks not good. Leko is wasting his time. I wonder if he ever will punished for this behaviour. Indeed a draw, it s a shame.there is nothing to be said more, we can only hope for more interesting games in the last five rounds {RK}. 54

54 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME KRAMNIK - LEKO RUY LOPEZ - C78 On Sunday Vladimir Kramnik for the first time in this match got a clearly better position out of the opening. With several pawn weaknesses in the position of Peter Leko, the title holder looked for a forced win. He sacrificed a pawn on move 24 in an attempt to cut off Leko's rook. But the 25-year-old Hungarian defended well, in spite of being in time pressure. I am trying to keep the lead and just thinking from game to game, said the challenger in the press conference after the game. The game took place to the background of rain and thunder in the mountains around Brissago and ended in a draw. The talk was of Kramnik's indisposal when he called off the previous game whilst it was still theory. It was probably little more than a cold and he looked fine at the start of game 10, it was however hard to tell. Now Leko needs two points out of the last four games to clinch the title. 1.e4 Again 1.e4. Kramnik doesn t change. Another Marshall Attack? {VB}. 1...e5 2. f3 c6 3. b5 a6 4. a4 f c5!? rdb1kdw4 Dp0pDp0p pdndwhwd Dwgw0wDw BDwDPDwD DwDwDNDw P)P)w)P) $NGQDRIw Neither Marshall no Anti-Marshall today - Leko decided to play the favourite line of his second Vlad Tkachev {VB}. This is a surprise, Leko never has played 5... c5. But I found a couple of games Leko playing White {RK}. 6.c3 Main line. In two previous games (the second game was played in a simul) Kramnik chose rather unambitious moves: 6. xc6 dxc6 7.d3 d7 8. bd c4 e8 10.b3 d6 11. b2 c5 12.a4 b6=, Kramnik-Karjakin, Dortmund 2004; 6.d3 d6 7.c3 b6 8. bd h3 e6 10. e1 e7 11. f1 g6 12. g3 c6 13.d4ƒ, Kramnik-Eguia Cambero, Barcelona 2002, {VB}. 6...b5 7. c2 Earlier this year Leko played this line as White: 7. b3 d6 8.d4 b6 9.a4 b8 10. a axb5 axb5 12. xb5 g4 13. c2 xf3 14.gxf3 h5, Leko- Karjakin, Dortmund 2004 {VB}. 7...d5 An interesting approach: Leko tries to find the sharpest lines in the Ruy Lopez. More solid move is 7...d6 for example: 8.d4 b6 9.a4 g4 10.h3 h5 11.d5 a5 12. a e2 c6 14.b4 cxd5 15.bxa5 xa5, Leko-Adams, Wijk aan Zee 2002 {VB}. 8.exd5!? Kramnik made this move quickly; it s not a novelty 55

55 GAME 10 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND but it hasn t been played previously at grandmaster level. After that Leko began to think long for every move. Maybe he expected 8.d4, as Kramnik s second Svidler played three years ago and won: 8...dxe4 9. xe5 xe5 10.dxe5 xd1 11. xd1 g4 12. xe4 xf2 13. c6+ e7 14. d5 b6 15. g5+ f6 16.exf6+ gxf6 17. h4 g h1 b8 19. d2 e6 20. h5 f7 (20... f xf2 xf2 22. f1 e3 23. b3 bd8 ½ ½, Lautier-Onischuk, Poikovsky 2004) 21.h3 e5 22. h6 g6 23. f1², Svidler-Grischuk, Biel 2001 {VB}. 8.exd5 is a side line, 8.d4 was played more. Still I don t know what to think about this position. Maybe White can sacrifice a pawn with 9.d4!? They can get very sharp positions, where the e- Line becomes open and Black has to play e8-f8 (after e1+) {RK} xd5 The alternative 8... xd5 causes no problems for White {RK}. rdbdkdw4 Dw0wDp0p pdndwhwd Dpgq0wDw wdwdwdwd Dw)wDNDw P)B)w)P) $NGQDRIw 9.a4 Strictly speaking this move is a novelty {VB}. 9.d4 exd4 10. e1+ e7 11.a4 b8 12.axb5 axb5 13. xd4 xd4 14. xd4 xd4 15.cxd4 e6 16. a7 d6 17. g5 d5 18. b c3 fe8 20. e4 b4 Vladimir Kramnik at the start of game 10. Mark Crowther 21. c1 h6 22. xh6 b6 23. xe6 xe6 24. d2 xe4 25. xb4 xd4 26. c5 d2 27. xb6 xb6 28. axc7 xb c2 b4 30. f1 e4 31. e1 d4 32. b2 b4 33. e3 f5 34. e2 f7 35.f3 f6 36.g3 g5 37. eb3 e5 38. a2 0 1, Martinez-Garcia, Cartagena de Indias 2001; 9. b3 d3 10. c2 d5 11. b3 d3 12. c2 d5 ½ ½, Rogic-Morovic Fernandez, Porec b4 We have now only a little nuance, White has to play d2-d4 anyway and wants to profit from the intermediate moves a4 and b4. Besides 9...b4 Black has 9... b8 and 9... b7. Again Leko starts to think a lot {RK}. 10.d4 Very logical: Black s king is still in the center, so White opens central lines. Kramnik is ready to sacrifice a pawn {VB}. This sac is even the favourite of Fritz. First 10. e1+ gives the possibility e7. That s for 10. b3 looks better {RK} exd4 11. b3 d8!? In case of d6 12. e1+ e6 13. g5 d8 14. f3 c6 15. f4 and White has an unpleasant initiative. Leko is going to defend his king with his king bishop, which will be defended in turn by his queen {VB}. If d6 12. e1+ f8 I would prefer White, but a good defender could like the pawn up for Black more. The queen on d8 seems weaker, because she is (after f8) protected only by the knight on c6. The conclusion is that Leko doesn t want to play f8. But now he gives the pawn back. So we have an equal position {RK}. 12. e1+ e7 13. xd4 xd4 14. xd4!? Typical Kramnik - even in a desperate match situation he prefers to play the endgame! By the way after the queen exchange Black would not have been able to castle {VB}. rdb1kdw4 Dw0wgp0p pdwdwhwd DwDwDwDw P0w!wDwD DB)wDwDw w)wdw)p) $NGw$wIw xd ? 15. xd8 xd8 16.cxb4±; 14...bxc3? 15. xd8+ xd8 16. xc3±. 15.cxd4 b7 With king still on e8, Black has problems to solve. The idea here is to change white coloured bishops with d5. Black has also d5 protecting the bishop e7 and allowing short or long castle. 16. g5 16. f4 d8 17. xc7 xd4=. 56

56 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME h6 A bit of a strange move - in this open position Leko loses a tempo and decides to ruin his pawn structure. As a compensation Black will get bishop pair. Maybe better was d8 for example: 17. d2 xd4 18. ac1 d8 (18... d7 19. c4!ƒ or 19.a5) 19. e3 (19. xf7 g4 20. xe7 xg f1 xe7 22. xc7+ d8 23. xb7 xg5 24. b8+ e7 25. xh8 xf7=) d7 20. xf7² {VB}. Leko s attempt to surprise Kramnik and it worked. Leko thought he would have chances to hold this position and at the same time avoid deep preparation (especially computer analysis) from Kramnik {MC}. 17. xf6 gxf6 18. d2 White has an advantage, but not so much as the Fritz evaluation indicates. At least White can pressure for a long time, and this is important for Kramnik because of the match situation {RK} g8 rdwdkdrd Db0wgpDw pdwdw0w0 DwDwDwDw P0w)wDwD DBDwDwDw w)whw)p) $wdw$wiw 19.g3 White has many tempting alternatives, for instance: 19.d5 d8 20. ac1 d7 21. e4 d8 22. c5 xc5 23. xc5 e8 24. xe8+ xe8 25. f1²; 19. e4 f8 [19... xe4?! 20. xe4 f8 (20... d8? 21. ae1 d7 22.a5+-) 21. ae1 d6 22.a5!?±] 20. ac1 f5 21. g3 d6 22.d5 f4 23. e4² {VB} d8 The position is very nice for Kramnik, but he needs something real. The black king would like to go to d8, but this isn t easy to manage. So he should go to f8. But f8 could fail because of 20. ac1 d6 21. c4 c8 22. xd6 cxd6 23. xc8+ xc8 24. c1 etc. It remains d8, but this is not an ideal place for the rook {RK}. 20. ac1 d7 wdwdkdrd Db0rgpDw pdwdw0w0 DwDwDwDw P0w)wDwD DBDwDw)w w)whw)w) Dw$w$wIw ChessBase A rare sight: Kramnik's second Miguel Illescas in the playing hall. White has a great position and as Grandmaster Shipov wrote on in his best form Kramnik would have win it against anyone. So, he must be very disappointed after game 10. White needs a target and he needs it soon, before Black consolidates {AB}. 21. c4 21.h4!? f8 (21... d8 22. c4 xd4 23. a5 a8 24. c6+ xc6 25. xc6 d6 26. ec1²; 21...c5!? 22. xc5 f8 23. c4 g4 24.d5 xc4 25. xc4 xd5 26. xa6²) 22. c4 c5!? 23.dxc5 (23.d5 xd5 24. a5 d7 25. xb7 xb7 26. c4 a5 27. cd1 ) xc5 24. f1 d4, {VB}. A critical position, how can White make progress? Fritz likes 21. c4 with the idea b3. After 21. c xd4 22. b3 White wins the pawn back (a6) and gets a free a-pawn, while the rook g8 is offside in nearly all variations. Kramnik has one problem: there are many promising moves now and he has to choose the best {RK}. Additionally to 21. c4 and 21. c4 I see, 21.a5 and 21. c2. After 21.a5 there is a long variation: d8 22. a4 xd4 23. xe7 xe7 24. b3 d7 25. e1+ d8 26. xd7 xd7 27. c5+ c8 28. e7 and it is not clear for me that the white advantage is winning. White should not lose time here, after a move like, let s say, 21. f1, Black can organise his pieces better, i.e d8 and f8 {RK}. According to Sergei Shipov, this move allows Black to consolidate his position a bit. Instead Shipov recommends 21.a5 d8 (worse is f8 22. a4 xd4 23. xc7 xd2 24. exe7 d5 25. e8+ g7 26. xg8+ xg8 27. d7) 22. a4 xd4 with two tempting lines: wdwiwdrd Db0wgpDw pdwdw0w0 )wdwdwdw B0w4wDwD DwDwDw)w w)whw)w) Dw$w$wIw 57

57 GAME 10 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND xd4 23. b3 e4 24. ed1+ c8 25. d7 d8 26. c5 e2 27.b3! - even after taking on b7 White will have an attack, as the opposite-squared bishops with rooks on the board will only fuel that attack, rather than improving Black s drawing chances; xd4 23. xe7 xe7 24. b3 d7 25. e1+ d8 26. xd7 xd7 27. c5+ c6!? 28. c1 a8 29. xa6+ b5 30. xc7+ a4 and Black gets real counterplay {AB} g5 The rook enters the play taking control over the important 5th rank {VB}. Preventing the threat 22. a5 {RK}. wdwdkdwd Db0rgpDw pdwdw0w0 DwDwDw4w P0N)wDwD DBDwDw)w w)wdw)w) Dw$w$wIw 22. e3 White could have won the exchange - 22.h4 gd5 (22... g4 23. a5 a8 24. c6 xc6 25. xc6 gxd4 26. xa6±) 23. c2!, but it looks like after xd4 24. f5 f3 ( d5 25. e4) 25. xd7+ xd7 Black can hold the position - thanks to the strong bishops {VB}. Winning the exchange is not good, as the black bishops become stronger than they are now, e.g. 22.f4 gd5 23. c2 xd4 24. f5 and if the rook d7 moves White has a5. Simple 22. e3 is stronger {RK} f8 wdwdwiwd Db0rgpDw pdwdw0w0 DwDwDw4w P0w)wDwD DBDwHw)w w)wdw)w) Dw$w$wIw 23.h4 Here GM Valery Beim suggested 23. d1! without forcing the enemy rook to a5, d6 24.h4 g8 25. f5 {AB} a5 This is a rather sad position for the rook {VB}. Other moves than a5 are like resigning {RK}. Optically White looks very good here but Black does have the two bishops {MC}. wdwdwiwd Db0rgpDw pdwdw0w0 4wDwDwDw P0w)wDw) DBDwHw)w w)wdw)wd Dw$w$wIw 24.d5 This move caused some surprise amongst the journalists. Kramnik said his pieces stood optimally and it was difficult to make progress. He didn t think much of d1 for instance. He said it had concrete ideas behind it {MC}. I don t like this move; it allows the rook on a5 to return into play. White had an interesting bishop manoeuvre to attack the rook on d7 from the kingside: 24. d1!? after d5 (24...h5 25. c4 f5 26. c2 f3 27. d2 xd4 28. xf3 xf3 29. d1+-; xd4 25. xc7+-) 25. xd5 (25. f5 e6 26. xh6?! xd4 27. xc7 d6µ) axd5 26. e2 a5 27. b5 7d6 28. xc7 d8 29. b7 (29. c8!?) xd4 30.b3!? and White has better chances because his pieces are more active and he has the better pawn structure. However, it may be very difficult to convert it into a full point {VB}. Fritz doesn t like 24.d5, Kramnik s advantage disappears. White had 24. d1 preparing 25. c4 and 25. g4 {RK} c5 25. cd1 c6! Leko has to open lines for his bishops {VB}. But with 15 minutes left for 15 moves he has still another problem to solve {RK}. I suspect that in his calculations Kramnik underestimated this move {AB}. 26. f5 cxd5 27. d4 Picture perfect blocaded position! But Black can activate his pieces and escape {VB}. wdwdwiwd DbDrgpDw pdwdw0w0 Dw4pDNDw P0w$wDw) DBDwDw)w w)wdw)wd DwDw$wIw dc7 Thanks to the Press Release we know that this move is very strong {VB}. Leko defends actively but White has no serious problem with his back rank {RK}. 58

58 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME ed1 28. xh6 c1 29. dd1 xd1 30. xd1 d7 31. f5 c5 {VB}. 28. xb4 is losing because of c1 so 28. g2 would threat 29. xb4 {RK} c1 29. xd5 White receives a dream position after changing the white coloured bishops. And of course, winning the pawn on d5 {RK} xd xd1 Would White win with knight against bishop on e7? {RK}. Kramnik now has half an hour to Leko s {MC}. wdwdwiwd Db4wgpDw pdwdw0w0 DwDBDNDw P0wDwDw) DwDwDw)w w)wdw)wd DwDRDwIw c8! This is very strong: Black is ready to change white coloured bishops, but only on e6! I think Leko equalized {RK} d7 31. b3 xd xd1 e4 33. xh6± {VB}. 31. e4 This move looks like a draw offer. But White could not have taken the pawns: 31. xh6 g7 32. xf7 due to g4! 33. e1 h5 and he has to play 34. xe7 xe7 35. d8 and fights for a draw {VB} xf5 32. xf5 This is equal but Leko makes the process short by exercising care {MC} b3 In order to exchange some pawns on the queenside {VB}. 33. d3 The advantage is symbolic; Kramnik can torture his opponent, but it must be a draw {RK} c4 34. d7 b4 35. c6 ½-½ And Leko escapes {VB}. wdwdwiwd DwDwgpDw pdbdw0w0 DwDwDwDw P4wDwDw) DpDRDw)w w)wdw)wd DwDwDwIw It was quite entertaining today. A good game of Kramnik until he had so many good possibilities and then failed to find the winning continuation - if such a move exists... Leko defended very well, it will be difficult to win a single game against such a good defender {RK}. Kramnik needs to win one of the last four games to save the match, Leko only a level score. Leko said he wants to make more of the white pieces having failed to in the last two games {MC}. ChessBase 59

59 GAME 11 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 11. LEKO - KRAMNIK QUEEN S INDIAN - E15 Same old same old we quote the official press release: "The players took no risk today: game 11 at the Classical World Chess Championship at Centro Dannemann ended in a quick draw. Titleholder Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), who is still one point down, and his challenger Peter Leko (Hungary) finished the game after 17 moves. Kramnik with Black improved on one of his games and played a strong novelty h5. Leko missed this move in his home preparation and was forced to go for a repetition of the moves. So the Hungarian is still in the lead. 'I have still all chances and two games with White', said Vladimir Kramnik after the game. 1.d4 f6 2.c4 e6 3. f3 b6 4.g3 a6 5. a4 In game 9, Leko played 5.b b7 6. g2 c5 7.dxc5 xc c3 e7 10. f4 a6 11. fd1 d6 rhw1w4kd DbDwgp0p p0w0phwd DwDwDwDw QDPDwGwD DwHwDN)w P)wDP)B) $wdrdwiw 12. c2 Earlier this year one of Kramnik s games went: 12. ac1 h5 (please note this move!) 13. e3 c7 14. c2 f6 15. f4 d8 16. d2 e4 17. xe4 xe4 18. g5 c6 19. xe7 xe7 20. f4 xf3 21. xf3 ac8 22. b7 a5=, Timman-Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2004 {VB} c7 13. ac1 13. d2 xg2 14. xg2 bd7 15. ac1 fc8 16. ce4 b7 17. g1 c6 18. d3 c7 19. c3 h6 20. f3 c8 21.h4 d8 22. d3 f8 23.b3 b5 24. xf6+ xf6 25.e4 d7 26. e2 b6 27.cxb5 axb5 28. f3 b4 29. d4 c5 30. d2 e5 31.f4 a5 32. xb4 aa8 33. b5 d5 34. xe7 xe7 35.a4 c e3 dxe4 37. d8+ h7 38. xc5 xc5 39. xa8 xa8 40. d6 g6 41. f2 c7 42. xc7 xc7 43. b6 f5 44. b5+ g4 45. b4 c e3 f5 47.a5 c d2 c5 49. a4 f3 50.a6 e d3 e2 52.a7 d c2 e1 54.a8 xg3 0 1, Amorim- Alzate, Elista d8 14. d2 h5 Formally speaking this is a novelty {VB}. An interesting fact is that in the game Jakobsen- Hansen Black played e8 15. g5 and then he took on g5: xg5 (15... f6!?) 16. xg5 followed by d7/ df6 (preparing d5) 17.b3 ac8 18. e3 ef6 19.h3 h6 20. d2 c5 21. e3 b8 22. d4 a8 23. cd1 e8 24. h4, Jakobsen-S. Hansen, Greve 2002 {JW}. 15. g5 f6 The only alternative after g5 is taking on g5, xg5, but then 16. xg5 xg2 17. xg2 is just slightly better for White. That couldn t be in Kramnik s sense. But maybe Kramnik sees the psychologically aspect of confusing Leko in rejecting the draw with the last chance {JW}. 16. f4 Leko thinks again longer. Have he expected more than a draw? Sure he has. But maybe he is surprised 60

60 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 11 by Kramniks repetition. 16. e3 is a possible move but making a pressure on b6 makes not really big sense for White, bd7 and Black is OK {JW} h5 rhw4wdkd Db1wgp0p p0w0pdwd DwDwDwDn wdpdwgwd DwHwDN)w P)w!P)B) Dw$RDwIw This novelty is a typical manoeuvre in the Hedgehog and Kramnik played similarly in his game against Timman, so there isn t anything extraordinary in it. But if both players don t want to play, modern chess rules cannot force them. Perhaps chess organisations, like FIDE and ACP, have to think how improve chess rules in order to avoid such fighless and soulless games e4 leads to the above-mentioned game Timman-Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2004 {VB}. 17. g5 f6 ½-½ It looks like Kramnik trust on his white chances {JW}. INTERVIEW WITH CARSTEN HENSEL So instead of deep analysis of this short game, we talk to the manager of both players, Carsten Hensel, the man who pulled this championship off. 46 years old, married, two children (18 and 14), living in Dortmund, where the strongest tournament in Germany is staged. Carsten Hensel replies eith "interesting conversations" when asked about his hobbies. When pressed he admits to music, literature and expressionist paintings, and adds a few kinds of sports: table tennis (where he is master class), soccer, chess. Food? He loves Italian, Thai and the potato salad his wife Birgit makes. We spoke to Carsten about his role in this World Championship match. Question: How did your cooperation with Vladimir and Peter begin? Carsten Hensel: I started personally managing Peter in 1998 and Vladimir in December 2001, but I have known both players for more than twelve years. Q: Could you also tell us why you chose chess? CH: It s a long story. As a journalist and press officer I was involved in the organisation of several top events, but also World Championships such as table tennis, ice-hockey, ice-skating or boxing. In 1991, I received a request to develop the Dortmund Chess Days a little flower at time. This project became very successful during the course of the 90s. Step by step I became more involved in the world of chess. Q: Wasn t it a bit risky for you? CH: Being involved in sports management is always a somewhat risky business, especially in chess because we are talking about a fairly small The match commentators GMs Artur Jussupow and Helmut Pfleger don't seem to be enjoying this game in their sound-proof cabin at the back of the playing hall. ChessBase 61

61 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND market. Only a few players are able to attract the mass media and sponsors. Fortunately Kramnik and Leko are two of them. But you are always dependent on the performances and the image of your clients. Q: What are the main abilities of a successful manager in chess? CH: As every personal manager you should never over-estimate the importance of your own person. Your clients take centre stage, not the manager. Without them you are nothing. Therefore you better stay in the background as much as possible. Okay, you need to be creative and a reasonable communicator and connecter. A general understanding of the media and commerce mechanisms is required, as well as a basic understanding of legal matters. There are many jobs in one and sometimes you need to be tough. But most important is discipline and the ability to work hard with a clear strategy and concept behind. Q: Could you compare Vladimir and Peter - as players and as personalities? CH: Please understand that I do not like to talk about their personalities or private matters here. But it is not a secret that Vladimir is probably the player with the deepest understanding of the game in the world. His general potential is incredibly high. Peter is also very talented of course, and in addition he benefits from his perfect physical fitness. Q: Could you name their strong and weak points? CH: Well, I will not abuse my trustful relationship with Vladimir and Peter to work this out publicly. But one thing I can tell you: both players have character and principles in life as well as in a chess game. Being very strong personalities they are ready to take responsibility for their decisions. Neither of them is easy to break, even if a game is lost. Q: Who is more difficult to work with? And is it difficult for you personally to share your time between them? CH: I never have had real difficulties in my work, either with Vladimir or with Peter. You know, sometimes there is a lot of pressure, but we are professionals trying to work on the best solutions possible. Of course the entire circumstances of the World Chess Champion are always more complex and require more time and energy. But this is very normal and I do not think that Peter was missing something. I made an important decision almost three years ago: to free myself from all other projects, and to work for Kramnik and Leko exclusively. This step gave me the necessary space to fully concentrate on them in order to work as successfully as possible. Q: What are the relations between them are like? CH: Of course it is a competitive situation. Leko wants to take something from Kramnik. This title is in accordance with the classical bloodline starting in 1886 with the 1st World Chess Champion Wilhelm Steinitz. There will be a lot of value and social recognition at stake in the Centro Dannemann, not only for the players but also for their nations. Therefore it might be too much to say that they are friends, but they have high respect of each other as chess players and as human beings as well. The match will be decided over the board only and not by using dirty tricks Q: Did it help in negotiations around this match that both grandmasters worked with one manager? CH: I am sure it did in this special case. Especially after the original rights-holders of the Classical World Chess Championship could not fulfil their obligations. After agreements were terminated we were able to look out for a sponsorship ourselves, starting from September At the same time we were under a lot of pressure from the media and the chess community worldwide. Fortunately the terms and conditions, including the regulations for the match, were agreed between the players. It was increasingly important for me in this process to speak on behalf of the players with one voice. If the two qualified participants for the Classical World Chess Championship would have been fighting against each other it would have been practically impossible to get the match organised. I can tell you that this process showed me that I was Albert Vasse 62

62 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND doing the right thing by accepting the manager jobs. I am very happy to work for such fascinating personalities. Q: What were the differences in preparations for the match between the players? CH: I am just a hobby chess-player and I never got involved in the details. Moreover I have requested from the beginning not to be too much informed in this area. Of course I know something in general about the teams and the camps, but I do not like to talk about it. Q: Do you think chess can be a profitable business? CH: Chess is already a profitable business, but unfortunately for a few elite players only. There will be never a real problem for top players and great personalities such as Kramnik, Leko, Anand or Kasparov. But I can tell you that there are many other interesting players outside the top ten. For them the commercial situation is very difficult. It is a pity to see that sometimes a top 20 player has serious problems to earn a living. Q: What must happen to change the situation? CH: Chess has much more potential but unfortunately we are facing a major problem: in the commercial field, chess is 20, 30 years behind other sports such as tennis, golf, light-athletics, table-tennis etc. Unless the organisations are not ready to develop real professional promotion and marketing structures together with the players by keeping the traditional and historical values of chess, these conditions simply cannot change that much. Nowadays we still have too many amateurs in the business trying to make a quick profit or to have their egos satisfied without any concept behind it. But the situation is not hopeless. The world of chess is beginning to see the real obstacles, and there are already some developments which are hopefully leading to the necessary changes. ChessBase.com LET S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK Most chess fans are angry with Kramnik and Leko now, but we are happy to show other opinions too: Dear Alex, I would like to express some sympathy with both Kramnik and Leko against some of the criticism they have received for their play in Brissago. Firstly, they are playing for a world title, and it is difficult to see why they shouldn t do so in the way they think best. It is all very well to want other people to play in a certain way, but which of us would want to be the gallant loser when so much is at stake? Secondly, I doubt that the placidity of the chess has any effect at all on public perceptions of our game. Most people in the world neither know nor care that the match is going on. I write from a library practically across the road from the Riverside Studios in London, where Kramnik played Kasparov in None of my colleagues here had any idea that a World Championship chess match took place just yards away from where they work! The public at large are only interested in chess when larger issues are at stake - what interested them in the past wasn t a Tal or an Alekhine but Fischer vs. Spassky or Karpov vs. Korchnoi. It s not actually important. And is Morozevich or Shirov any less exciting to watch because Kramnik or Leko can be dull? Thirdly, I wonder whether the main culprit isn t, in fact, the players, but the format. If you play only sixteen games then you can t afford to fall two behind, the match will be practically beyond you. Were there not long sequences of draws in the matches the great attacking player, Kasparov, played against both Kramnik and Anand? Nobody played va banque in those matches either. Of course it has been a little disappointing but this is what often happens when two players with cautious styles play against each other, as opposed to the clash of styles which makes any sporting contest fascinating. But it is only disappointing, not disastrous, and it is not damaging chess. Cheers, JUSTIN HORTON, London Well, my arguments are: They should not devalue the title by refusing to fight in so many games in the match none of their predecessors did that! And nobody in other sports does it. The title is not a fetish there is life after it! Time to remember that chess is also an art! When Kasparov needed a draw in the last game of one of his matches vs. Karpov, he did not employ the Petroff! They are damaging prospects of sponsorship for professional chess (including Shirov and Morozevich!). In Russia there s a saying which goes like this: greater ability assumes greater responsibility!. I rest my case. ALEX BABURIN, Chess Today 63

63 GAME 12 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 12. KRAMNIK - LEKO CARO-KANN DEFENCE - B19 In game 12, Peter Leko, who had the black pieces, changed his defence and played the Caro Kann. Kramnik came up with an interesting 18. h7 and managed to create a lot of pressure. Leko decided to let White exchange on f6 and get double pawns. The black position looked almost lost, but the challenger defended vigorously, using all chances to create counterplay. Kramnik tried to activate his knight and to bring it to c6. Meanwhile Leko collected two pawns on the kingside. Suddenly the position didn't look so good for White anymore. Leko suggested an exchange of queens and offered a draw at the same time after this hard-fought game. The challenger needs just one more point from two games to become World Champion. He felt relieved and said: It was a very tough game for me. I had several nightmares during the game. The spectators applauded the protagonists. 1.e4 c6 After winning the 8th game Leko has suddenly discarded the classical Ruy Lopez that served him well in the first half of the match. Despite having experienced obvious troubles in the next two black games he was lucky to survive {MN}. 2.d4 d5 3. d2 dxe4 4. xe4 f5 5. g3 g6 6.h4 h6 7. f3 d7 8.h5 h7 9. d3 xd3 10. xd3 e gf6 11. d2 e c7 13. e g3 xe4 15. xe4 d6 16. b1 he8 is an alternate line {MC}. 11. f4 a d2 c gf6 14. e g3 xe4 16. xe4 d6 17. b1 Let s pass all these moves over in silence. This Caro-Kann line has been played hundreds of times. Everybody knows that White has a small spatial advantage, that the h5-pawn fixes Black s kingside so that many endings may favour White but on the other hand this pawn may become weak under certain circumstances etc. etc. 17.c4 is played much more frequently than the text move but the main ideas remain the same {MN}. 17.c4 sometimes can lead to positions from White s 22nd in Kramnik-Leko (with some minor but significant differences). For a reference, see my game vs. Adianto {MG}: f6 18. c2 c5 19.d5 exd5 20.cxd5 he8 21. c3 d7 22. xf6 gxf6 23. h4 b8 24. b1 g4 25. f5 f3 26. xh6 f8 27. xf7 d7 28.d6 e2 29. he1 xe1 30. xe1 xd6 31. xd6 xd6 32. e8+ c7 33. xc5+ c6 34. e7+ b6 35. e3+ 1 0, Golubev-Adianto, ISSM-opH Lucern After 17.c4, the following could have almost reached the same position as the game: f6 18. c2 c5 19.d5 exd5 20.cxd5 he8 21. c3 d7 22. b1 b8 23. xf6 gxf6 24. h4 g4 25. f5 e2 26. xh6 f3 27. f5 xb xb2 e c1 a d2 xd e2 xa f3 b g2 xd1 34. xd1 xd1 35. g4 d h3 h h2 c1 38.f4 d4 39.h6 e1 40.h7 e8 41. g4 f8 42. h5 f5 43. e5 h8 44. xf7 xe5 45.fxe5 1 0, Coelho- Molina, Sao Jose de Rio Preto 2003 {MC} he8 Agopov-Grischuk at the ECC 2004 is the last game in this variation. The result was 0:1. The game went on with f6 18. e2 he8 19.c4 and 64

64 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 12 then c5, a standard reaction to save the control over the black squares {JW}. wdk4rdwd 0p1nDp0w wdpgpdw0 DwDwDwDP wdw)qdwd DwDwDN)w P)PGw)wD DKDRDwDR 18. h7!?n Perhaps Leko was going to try the double-edged idea of f7-f5 that has become popular recently. Black weakens the e6-pawn and the e5 square but in return he obtains the good outposts e4 and g4 for his knight. Nonetheless after the queen s thrust Black has to make some corrections in his plans {MN}. Kramnik thought for a long time before playing this novelty. Was he surprised by he8? Even if White has a small advantage here, he has to watch out for the levers c5 and e5. In this position many things were tried: e2, he1, c4, g4 and de1 (which looks a bit strange). 18. he1 maybe runs into f6. Then White must play h4 which is not really a nice place for the queen. 18. de1 is dobious because it would left the d-file [a-file which will be open up after one of the two levers (c5, e5)]. After 18. g4 e.g. Black could play easily g8. And what has White reached? I think nothing {JW} g8 After h8, White has the options 19. xg7 and 19. d3: 19. xg7 dg8 20. xf7 f8 21. g7 (21. xe6 xf3! sacrificing a figure for three pawns and Black is better) fg8 and draw by repetition. 19. d3 he8 should be better for White because he switched off the f6 option and got a possible c4. So why should Black not force the white queen to a decision? Maybe Kramnik only wanted to safe a bit of time by repeating the moves once (18. h7 h8 19. e4 he8)? f8 instead would maybe leave into 19. f4 b6 20. d3² {JW}. In the event of h8, Kramnik would have taken his queen back to d3 as after 19. xg7 dg8 20. xf7 f8 21. g7=, the game ends up by moves repetition, while the piece sacrifice 21. xe6 xf3 hardly represents a serious danger for Black. The change in the position produced by the queen s there and back manoeuvre is seen for example in the line 19. d3 he8 20.g4 which is impossible with the queen on e4 due to f6 and the g-pawn is lost {MN}. 19.c4 Now the attacked queen can go even further to c2 without exposing itself to the rook d8 rays {MN}. White gets the extra square c2 for his queen. With 19. d3 he had the option for playing c4 maybe {JW}. INTERVIEW WITH CARSTEN HENSEL - PART 2 When the 11th match game between Kramnik and Leko was drawn in 17 moves, and there was nothing to say about the chess, ChessBase interviewed Carsten Hensel (see previous pages), who is the personal manager of both players. It was a remarkable interview. Here are some questions: Q: Do Kramnik and Leko feel any pressure to play more fighting chess? Q: Have Kramnik and Leko noticed the fans' disappointment about their short draws? Q: Could it be that Kramnik and Leko feel intimidated by the title they are playing for? Q: Do Kramnik and Leko feel an obligation to be creative in their games? Q: How do Kramnik and Leko justify playing only two moves beyond their home preparation? Q: Do Kramnik and Leko like chess? Q: Is it difficult for Kramnik and Leko to look their sponsors in the eye after a 17-move draw? Q: Are Kramnik and Leko afraid they will not be able to keep a straight face when they collect their fees? Q: Are Kramnik and Leko concerned that they are turning away this new sponsor from chess? Q: Would Kramnik and Leko admit to being cowards? Q: Do the Dannemann representatives in Brissago know so little about chess that they don't know they're being ripped off by Kramnik and Leko? Not one of these questions was asked. Hensel is a strong pingpong player, and he likes his wife's potato salad... Open Chess Diary

65 GAME 12 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 19...c5 Black must prevent a white c5 (to keep the control of the diagonal f4-b8). Either with f6 followed by c5 or with a direct c5 {JW}. Black s normal Caro-Kann reaction to c2-c4. After 19...f5? 20. de1 (not 20. g6?? f8 and the queen is lost but 20.c5! may prove to be even stronger than the immediate attack on the e6-pawn) f6 21. g6 the queen escapes while the weak pawn makes Black suffer {MN}. 20.d5!? Apparently the only way to fight for the initiative. With his queen wandered away White isn t quite ready to maintain the pressure in the centre e.g. 20. c3 cxd4 (20... f6 21. c2 cxd4 22. xd4 c5 should be good as well) 21. xd4 (21. xd4 c6!? 22. d2 b4) f6 22. d3 c5 with the active play for Black {MN}. 20. c2 f6 21. e3 cxd4 22. xd4 c5 or 20. c3 f6 21. d3 cxd4 22. xd4 c5 are OK for Black {JW}. After, 20. c2, Black will probably play c6 at some point attacking the knight on f3 {MC}. wdk4wdrd 0p1nDp0Q wdwgpdw0 Dw0PDwDP wdpdwdwd DwDwDN)w P)wGw)wD DKDRDwDR f6 Leko took more than 20 minutes for this move exd5 21.cxd5 f6 (21... b6 22. d4 cxd4 23. c1 {MC}) 22. c2 is equal, e7 (attacking d5 and not xd5? because of 23. f5+) 23. f4 (to control the important diagonal f4-b8) d6 24. h4 (24. e3 b8=) b8=, leaving the c-file, could be a possible continuation. It s a bit risky because d5 can be weak and strong but Kramnik needs at least two points out of the last three games if he wants to stay Champion. But as longer as I look onto the board I simply must say - This d5-pawn couldn t be strong enough for a big play {JW}. 21. c2 After 21. d3 there was maybe the possibility to play 21...e5 with the idea e4, e5 {JW} exd5 22.cxd5 d7 That s a surprise! Again Leko thought for a long time. The reason is perhaps that he doesn t like this kind of position so much. The white threat is c3. So e7 is an option to prevent it. Fritz for example prefers clearly e7 with instead of g4 (+0.43!) de8 is not so good because of h4 preventing the e4 idea (after a possible c3 instead of h4) {JW}. Covering the f5 square and thus preparing the capture on d5 which would have been a blunder right away xd5?? 23. f5+; the attempt to win this pawn by e7!? could have been met by another there and back f4 d6 24. c1 (in the event of 24. e5?! xe5 25. f5+ d7 26.d6 a5! 27. xe5 c4! 28.f4 f6, White gets no sufficient compensation for the piece; 24. e3, Fritz s suggestion, wasn t even considered by Kramnik who thought it just good for White {MC}) e7 25. h4!? xd5 (25... xd5? loses to 26. f5+ d7 27. xd5+-) 26. f5 with White s initiative (after the tempting 26. xd5 xd5 27. f5+ d7 28. xf7? f8 29. xg7 b4! White finds himself in a hopeless position {MN}. 23. c3 Centro Dannemann / Brissago / Switzerland. Centro Dannemann website 66

66 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 12 wdk4wdrd 0pDqDp0w wdwgwhw0 Dw0PDwDP wdwdwdwd DwGwDN)w P)QDw)wD DKDRDwDR de8!? Of course this move contains a significant strategical risk but Leko believes in the dynamic strength of his position {MN} g4 24. h4 g6? 25. he1 (e.g.) should be clearly better for White. White has two threats: e5 and xf6 destroying the black pawn structure on the kingside de8 prevents e5 but not xf6! {JW} g4 24. he1 and Black is already running out of moves {MC}. 24. xf6 Strategically winning but maybe not tactically according to Kramnik {MC}. An option could also be 24. d4 before taking on f6 but xf6 is better than because the king on c8 is a bit weaker than on b8. Fritz gives also 24. d4 e4 25. he1 f5 26. e3 with an advantage of 0.32 for White {JW} gxf6 25. d3 Kramnik called this a strange move after the game. It intends d2 next move {MC}. To 25. d4 aiming at f5, Black replies g5! - the resource which allowed Leko to save the difficult position in the 10th game! (note that the kingside pawn formation is the same in both games). The text move prepares the knight transference via another route. To all appearances Kramnik didn t like 25. d2 on account of e2! and if 26. h7 ge8 27. xh6? (27. c4!? {JW}) f c1 (28. a1? c2 +) xd5 29. xf6 e5 with Black s dangerous attack {MN} f5 Another move could have been b8 26. h4 e4 (or also e5) 27. f3 e5 28. g2 ge8 with a slight advantage for White {JW}. 26. d2 wdkdrdrd 0pDqDpDw wdwgwdw0 Dw0PDpDP wdwdwdwd DwDQDw)w P)wHw)wD DKDRDwDR 26...b5! It s getting hotter. Black agrees to open his king s position in order to restrain the white knight {MN}. Leko prevents c4 but weakens his pawn structure on the queenside {JW}. Preventing c4 which could be very strong {MC}. 27. he1 When you have no plan, then, look after your worst placed piece and try to improve it {JW} b8 Black could try 27...c4 right away but Leko prefers the prophylactic move that in some variations would allow him to avoid the check from f5 {MN}. 28. c3 Searching for the holes in the pawn barrier. After 28.f4 xe1 29. xe1 c4! it s difficult for White to defend the d5 and g3-pawns f3 (30. c3 c7!) b4 31. d1 e8 {MN}. KAZIMDZHANOV VS. KASPAROV IN JANUARY IN DUBAI Wednesday, , 16:00h MET: FIDE has just announced the above in an official press release: The World Championship Match between World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan and the world s highest rated player, Garry Kasparov of Russia shall be held 7th to 24th January 2005 in Dubai. This was announced by FIDE President H.E. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at a press conference on 13th October at the Interfax News Agency in Moscow. The match will be held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum with a prize fund of $1.2 Million. President Ilyumzhinov said that this is one of the steps of the Prague Agreement signed two years ago in the Czech Republic. The winner of the Kasparov-Kazimdzhanov match will play against the winner of the Kramnik-Leko match. The FIDE President assured the journalists that the match will take place and said that players have agreed the schedule. Kasimdzhanov proposed and Kasparov agreed to a rest day after three games. Players contracts with FIDE will be sighed in a few days. The two players are doing their utmost to comply with FIDE regulations, Kirsan Ilyumdzhinov said. Players will be billeted at the plush 7-star Burj Al Arab hotel. Playing venue shall be announced later. Total organizational budget is $2.5 Million. 67

67 GAME 12 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND xe1 29. xe1 c e8 30. xe8+ xe8 31. f6 e c2 {MC}. 30. f3 The knight has noticed the d4 square! The active 30. f6 is met by b4 31. xh6 xd5 32. f4+ d6 33. e3 f4! 34.gxf4 xh5 and Black is by no means worse here {MN}. 30.b3 c5 31. f3 (31.bxc4 xf2 32. f1 xg3 should be at least equal) b4 32. e2 c8= {Fritz} f4! wiwdwdrd 0wDqDpDw wdwgwdw0 DpDPDwDP wdpdw0wd Dw!wDN)w P)wDw)wD DKDw$wDw 31.g4!? In the event of 31. d4 fxg3 32.fxg3 Black needs one precise move: b7! to parry the threats (bad is xg3? 33. c6+ a8 34. h8+ b7 35. d4! and the black king is in jeopardy e.g a8? loses on the spot to 36. e8+) the point is that 33. c6? is impossible due to f5+ while the other moves can t really improve White s position {MN}. After 31. d4 fxg3 32.fxg3 xg3 33. e7 with the threat c6 {Kramnik}. 31.gxf4 f5+ followed by xd5 with a slight advantage for Black due to the white pawn structure destroyed on the kingside. Everytime 31. f6 seems to be a good move, why not directly 31...fxg3 32. e5 xe5 33. xe5+ b7 34.fxg3 g5!³. So 31.g4 is a must {JW} c7 A strong move, attacking directly the weak pawn on d xg4 32. f6 d7 33. e5!² {JW}. Kramnik missed this {MC}. 32. d4 Albert Vasse Kramnik could have sacrificed another pawn by 32. d4 xd5 (to xg4 White has the annoying 33. b4! a6 34. c5) 33.f3 but it seems Black is OK after d8 34. f5 c6 {MN} xg4 Black needs some compensation for the centralized white figures {JW}. 33. e4? Kramnik goes for all or nothing! Fritz says that this move is a mistake {JW}. If 33.d6 f c1 b6 35. d2 and restraining the knight once again by 35...f6 Black has nothing to be afraid of. Perpetual check after 33. c5!? xf3 34. xb5+ b6 35. e8+ xe8 36. xe8+ c7 37. c6+ d8 38. a8+ d7 (the only move, other squares are unavailable in view of d6+) 39. c6+ would have been the logical outcome but trying to play for a win Kramnik makes a mistake {MN}. 33. c5!? xf3 34. xb5+ b6 35. e8+ xe8 36. xe8+ leads to a draw by never ending checks and 33. e5 f c1 b6 is OK for Black {JW} xh5! 34. d4 g6 ½-½ wiwdwdrd 0wgwDpDw wdwdwdq0 DpDPDwDw wdphq0wd DwDwDwDw P)wDw)wD DKDw$wDw In a mutual time trouble draw was agreed. However after g6 35. f5 d8 36. d1 d6 Black is simply two pawns up {MN}. Both players had something like 8 minutes for 7 moves each. Also it s a bit easier for Kramnik because he has the dynamic chances. But if he can t manage a use out of them yes then the match could be over. Here 35. f5 is forced as switching the queens can t be a good decision. Leko accepted a draw in a clearly better position for him. That can be only a problem with his nerves. So Kramnik is still alive in the match {JW}. After the game Peter Leko admitted he was extremely worried but his cool head held the game without it being obvious where Kramnik could improve. Kramnik said only analysis would tell whether he should be disappointed with the result. In mutual time trouble Peter Leko decided to secure his match position with a draw offer which Kramnik wasn't in a position to ignore and which in retrospect might have been generous in that the winning chances may have all been Leko's. MARK CROWTHER, TWIC 68

68 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME LEKO - KRAMNIK BENONI - A73 Possibly the most exciting and nerve-tingling game ended after six hours and 65 moves. Vladimir Kramnik took a lot of risks, playing a very complicated opening. He surprised Peter Leko with his plan f7-f5, and reached a promising position. Leko managed to simplify the position and went into a rook endgame. But he was also in time trouble and missed some important moves. Soon his position was considered completely lost by all expert, but under enormous pressure, Leko played his best chess and found a miracle defence to save the game. 1.d4 f6 2.c4 e6 3. f3 c5 This is a little surprise. Kramnik played it only one time before with Black. His opponent was Kasparov in the Botvinnik Blitz match (1:0, 31). Otherwise Kramnik played the Benoni only with White until now. Once for example against Topalov in Dortmund 2001 (draw, 42). Leko instead played the Benoni twice with Black. Once against Georgiev (draw, 27) and another against Komarov (draw, 34). Both games were played in 1997 {JW}. 4.d5 To Leko s credit let it be said that he doesn t avoid complications. After 4. c3 or 4.g3 it s easier for White to simplify the position {MN}. 4...d6 5. c3 exd5 6.cxd5 g6 7. d2 White immediately sends the knight to the square that is optimal for it in this pawn formation. From c4 it attacks the d6-pawn and supports a e4-e5 breakthrough. Of course this manoeuvre implies a loss of time which allows Black to complete development comfortably and prepare counterplay {MN}. d2 is a standard move in such positions. The knight wants to go to c4 (making pressure on d6) {JW} g7 8.e e2 a6 In the majority of the Modern Benoni lines Black has a free choice between the knight s development at d7 or a6 {MN} e8 After e8 we would be still in the game Kramnik-Topalov (Dortmund 2001) for example e8 is a very seldom played variation! The last game on GM level there was in 2003! Lugovoi-Vera, Montreal, 1:0 after 80 moves {JW}. The positions after c7 11.a4 b6 12. c4 a6 followed by xc4 are explored better. Maybe that s exactly why Kramnik opts for another plan {MN}. 11. c4 ac7 Kramnik played the move e8 and ac7 really fast {JW}. rdb1n4kd 0phwDpgp wdw0wdpd Dw0PDwDw wdndpdwd DwHwDwDw P)wDB)P) $wgqdriw One black knight protects the d6-pawn another controls the b5 square (right now White has to defend against b7-b5). Black s next move shows another feature of this arrangement {MN}. 12.a4 f5 It becomes transparent that the king s knight has cleared a path for the f-pawn while the queen s one is aiming at the d5-pawn {MN}. 69

69 GAME 13 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND Leko contemplating the Benoni. On moves like a6 for example White plays in 99 percent of the cases a5 {JW}. 13.exf5 We have in a way a new type of position in that system. In some other games White played f4. But f4 is now bad because of fxe4 so Leko has to look for something different. An alternative to 13.exf5 would have been f3 with the idea of playing e1 and e5 {JW}. The game Kramnik-Ivanchuk, Belgrade 1995 went 13.f3 e7 14. f4 g5 15. g3 f4 16. f2 b6 17. e1 a6 18.e5 xc4 19.exd6 xd6 20. xc4 d7 21. a2 ae8 with unclear play {MN} xf5 Commonly Black recaptures with the bishop. However statistics vote for the text move. The only game on the subject was won by Black! {MN}. 14. g4 Leko took around 20 minutes for this move. We have a terrible complicated position and it was not really easy to decide. White can play d3, f3 or maybe also a5. f3 looks like the most solid move. It covers d5 and is preparing e1. It gives also the option to play e2 without any problem. 14. a5 xc3?! 15.bxc3 xd5 16. b3 f5 17. e3+ e6 18. xb7 f7 19. c6 is slightly better for White {JW} f8 Kramnik is still playing very fast - all home preparation? {JW}. Yudasin against Socha (Gdynia 1987) played f7 and obtained a good position after 15. f3 b6 16. e4 h6 17. e1 b7 18. g3 f6 19. e3 f8. Kramnik s novelty doesn t make a big difference while Leko s next move is more logical than 15. f3 of his predecessor {MN}. 15. xc8 Why shall White switch his g4 bishop against the c8? After f3 the black queen s bishop has no real target {JW}. Mark Crowther, TWIC xc8 Kramnik thought a bit longer for the first time. Maybe is he out of his preparation? Leko s reason for xc8 instead of f3 could be exactly this {JW}. 16. b3 What is the White plan here? Maybe preventing all Black s ideas and to complete the development in the first step. Afterwards White could try to create some pressure against the d6-pawn or something similar. 16. b3 attacks b7 and helps for the development {JW}. 16.a5 deserved attention to impede b7-b6 {MN}. wdr1n4kd 0phwDwgp wdw0wdpd Dw0PDwDw PDNDwDwD DQHwDwDw w)wdw)p) $wgwdriw 16...b b6?!??! Kramnik weakens the light squares on the queenside but why? What about b8? c8 looks not like the right square for the rook f7 was also possible and if 7. xb7? b8 18. xa7 xd5 19. xf7+ xf7 20. xd5 c7³. But of course after f7 White can play a move like e3 for example. The position should be slightly better for White {JW}. 17. b5 Leko wants to take a direct use of the weakness. 17. d2 would be the easy and simple alternative to b5 {JW}. All in all Leko prefers the strategy of simplification. Here 17.a5?! won t do on account of 17...b5! 18. xb5? b8 {MN} xb a8 18. d2 xb5 19.axb5 with a slight advantage for White {JW}. 18.axb5 White has particular pawns on b5 and d5 but isn t it so that the a-file and the knight on c4 are more than enough compensation for that? {JW}. 18. xb5!? {MN}. 18. xb5 runs into h4 19. d7 d8 20. e6+ f7 21. e2 f6² (Fritz) {JW} c7 Two weak points in Black s camp - a7 and d6 are effectively protected. Since White s pawn formation has its drawbacks too the position is balanced {MN}. A move like a8 is maybe here not so good because White gets tactical chances with moves like xb6 {JW}. 19. d2 The black bishop looks stronger than its counterpart 70

70 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 13 and this is not surprising that Leko is planning to exchange it {MN} cf cf7 is logical or h4!? starting some activity on the kingside. Both moves are putting pressure on f2. h4 has the slight advantage that after a move like c3, d4 could be an idea {JW}. 20. c3 wdw1n4kd 0wDwDrgp w0w0wdpd DP0PDwDw wdndwdwd DQGwDwDw w)wdw)p) $wdwdriw d h4 came seriously into consideration where Black has the initiative after 21. xg7 (21.f3 h6! with idea of f4) xg7 22.g3 (22. c2 f5³ {JW}) d4 attacking the f2-pawn or e7 intending f5-d4 {MN}. 21.f3 g g5 looks like it would simply weaken the white squares on the kingside. Fritz sees e3 with a half pawn ahead for White {JW} f5 22. fd1 or ad1, White shall have a slight advantage because of the better knight d7 looks in a way a bit strange to me... {JW}. 22. e3 Black has weakened his kingside a bit without getting real attacking chances instead {MN}. After e3 ideas like a4-e4 come to my mind {JW} f e7 23. fe1 f6 24. c4 xe xe1 e8 26. a1 or 26. f1² {JW}. 23. fe1 h5 A move for all or nothing d4 just to weaken the black squares (d4, b4) 24. xd4 (what else?) xd4 25. c2 df4 26. g4 is still slightly better for White {JW}. 24. c2 White s position looks more harmonical than 5 moves before {MN} f7 Black couldn t allow g6 {MN}. 25.h3 I believe in Leko s situation even Shirov would have blocked g5-g4 {MN}. Or 25. d3 covering all pawns, controlling c4 and having an eye on g6. Leko must play 16 moves in 20 minutes - We will see how good he can manage this handicap {JW} d4 The only active possibility {MN}. 26. xd4 Leko doesn t want to go deeply in 26. h2 g4 27.fxg4 especially because Black could have improved by g7 {MN}. 26. a3! (given by Fritz as the only move who saves the advantage) 26...g4 27.hxg4 hxg4 28. xd4 gxf3 29.gxf3 xd4 30. g4² {JW}. wdwdn4kd 0wDwDqDw w0w0wdwd DP0PDw0p wdwgw4wd DwDwHPDP w)qdwdpd $wdw$wiw xd4 Kramnik used 10 minutes for this move which seems weaker than 20...cxd4 because the knight on e3 looks simply to good. Maybe was he frightened of the white counterplay {JW} cxd4 led to a very sharp play e.g. 27. c4 (27. f1 g4 28.hxg4 hxg4 29. h2 gxf3 30. xf3 g4 31. e2! protecting the knight indirectly) 27...g4 28.hxg4 hxg4 29.fxg4 (29. e6!? is only possible with a sharp position: f5 30.fxg4 xd5 31. g6+ g7 32. d3 f h1 g5! {LW}) and probably Black has nothing better than perpetual after 29...d3 30. xd3 xc4 31. xc4 f h2 h4+ {MN}. Leko was not a 1.d4 player before this match and so the Benoni was a good option. Kramnik said he was very happy with the choice. He wasn't sure of the objective strength of pushing the kingside pawns but at least it put Leko under pressure, he also wasn't sure about d4 but it was difficult to find other continuations for him. The endgame, he said, was more easily drawn in a number of ways according to Kramnik at least three or four. Around first time control it was clear that Leko was under severe pressure. It may prove that Kramnik missed something simple, he said that he certainly couldn't find anything but he did find several miracle saves for Leko. In the end it went down to king vs. king but the position was already clearly drawn for some time. Leko's play throughout was extremely determined and he is clearly going to be hard to beat on at the last game. MARK CROWTHER, TWIC 71

71 GAME 13 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 27. f5! Forcing the transposition into a four rook ending {MN}. Completely equalizing {MC} xf5 28. xf5 xf5 29. xe8+ The double rook endgame is maybe slightly better for Black when we take a look at the static factors. In the dynamic way Leko should have enough counterplay to compensate the static minus {JW} f7 In principle the ending is more promising for Black as the d5-pawn is doomed and the b2-pawn will be an easy prey as well which would give him a pair of connected passed pawns {MN}. 30. b8?! An active alternative to 30. e2 preventing d2. But isn t it so that Black gets enough counterplay now? I am not so sure this was the best decision {JW}. Apparently Leko was going to take on a7 and b6 but then he changed his mind. Therefore it was better to go for another pawn h8 dxd5 31. xa7+ e6 32. h6+ e5 33. xh5 {MN}. Famille Leko. wdwdn4kd 0wDwDqDw w0w0wdwd DP0PDw0p wdw4wdwd DwDwHPDP w)qdwdpd $wdw$wiw dxd5?! I don t understand this move {JW}. ¹30... d2! {SS} 31. xa7+ f6 32. xb6 fxd5 33.b3 (33. d7 h4! 34.b3 5d e6) b2 with chances for a win {NV}. 31. xa7+ e f6 32. xb6 x d6 {NV}. 32. e8+ In the event of 32. xb6 d h2 d2ƒ Black can combine the advance of the c-pawn with the threats to the enemy king after the rooks doubling along the second rank supported by h5-h4 {MN} f6 wdwdrdwd $wdwdwdw w0w0wiwd DP0rDr0p wdwdwdwd DwDwDPDP w)wdwdpd DwDwDwIw 33.g4?! This impatient move causes serious troubles. After the better 33. h7 {MC} with idea 33...h4 (33... g6 34. b7 d2 35. xb6 fd5 36.b3 {SS}) 34. ee7! the game would have ended in a draw without the elimination of all the pieces {MN} hxg4 34.hxg4 d1+ No, Leko didn t really hope for xf3?? 35. f8+ {MN}. 35. f2 e5 Now the black king has an emergency exit {MN}. 36. h8 Threatening with h6 mate by the way! {MN}. 36. xe5 xe5 37. g7 {SS} f6! 38. b7 d e3 xb2 40. xb6 e5 41. b8 b e2 d4 43. g8 c4 44. xg5 d5 45. f5 b d1 c3 47.g5 c4 + {NV} d e6!? 37. b7 (37. e8+ d5 38. xe5+ xe5-36. xe5) d g3 ee2 ( d5 39. g8 xb2 40. xb6 c4 41. g6) 39. e8+ d5 40. xe2 xe2 {NV}. 37. g3 ee2 Kramnik shows that he is no stranger to mating network either {MN} e6!? {NV} 38.b3 d5µ {JW}. 38. f h6+ e5 39. e7+ d5 40. xe2 xe2 41. g6 is also better for Black but is it necessary to give White so much counterplay? {JW}. Mark Crowther, TWIC 72

72 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME g6 Kramnik goes for saving the 40th move first {JW}. 39. g8+ f6 40. f8+ e6 41. e8+ d5 42. xe2 xe2 wdwdwdwd $wdwdwdw w0w0wdwd DP0kDw0w wdwdwdpd DwDwDPIw w)wdrdwd DwDwDwDw 43. g7! An essential move which wins an important tempo. 43.b3!? {MN} e5 After xb2 44. xg5+ both sides has connected pawns and White is hardly worse here though I don t dare to give the final conclusion without a thorough analysis {MN} xb2 44. xg5+ e6 (44... c4 45. g6 d5 46. xb6 d4 47.g5=) 45.f4 (45. g6+ e7 46. g7+ f6 47. b7 xb5 48.f4 b h4 b1µ) xb5 46.f5+ e5 47. g8 b h4 f3 49. b8 (49. g5 c4 50. e8+ d4 51. f6 c3 52. c8 b5 +) 49...d5 50. xb6 d4 51. c6 d5 52. c8 d3 53. h5 d4 54. g6 d2 55.f6 c4 56. d8 d3 57. xd3 xd3 58.f7 d1 59.f8 xg4+ {SS}. wdwdwdwd DwDwDw$w w0w0wdwd DP0k4w0w wdwdwdpd DwDwDPIw w)wdwdwd DwDwDwDw This is the position where everyone knew that Peter Leko was completely lost. But watching the game on playchess.com Garry Kasparov suddenly said: Wait a minute, after 44. b7 White has chances to draw. In spite of harsh contradiction by the heavily armed spectators (equipped with Fritz, Junior and even the 16-processor Hydra) Kasparov stuck to his analysis, which Leko went on to play, almost move by move. GM Jon Levitt called it a magical draw {CB}. Leko started thinking longer. Every move have to be the right one now. In such endgames you must try to calculate as deep as possible every candidate move. The last task is then to compare every candidate move and to select that one with the best chances. It is not so easy so very often it is a question of feeling {JW}. 44. b7 44.b3 d4 45. g6 d5 46. xb6 e3 47. g6 xb3 48. xg5 c4! + {SS} c c4!? 45. xb6 d5 46.f4 (46.b3+ xb3 47.f4 e f2 gxf4 49. c6 c4 50.b6 d4 51.g5 d3 52.b7 e f3 b2 54. xf4 xb7 +; 46. d6 xb5 47.f4! is OK for White {JW}) e f2 gxf4 48. f6! xb5 49. xf4 b3 50.g5 xb f3 {NV}. 45. xb6 e2?! e3!µ 46. b8 b3 47. g8 d4 48. xg5 d5 49. g8 xb2 50.g5 c3 51. c8 xb5 52. f4 b1 53.g6 g1 54. f5 d3 + {NV}. wdwdwdwd DwDwDwDw w$w0wdwd DPDkDw0w wdpdwdpd DwDwDPIw w)wdrdwd DwDwDwDw 46.f4! White has to obtain the second passed pawn as soon as possible. The number of pawns doesn t matter much anymore {MN}. The only chance, preventing Black from taking on b2, and Leko found it! It s a really hard job to defend this endgame with White. On the one hand you wanna be sure to calculate everything right and on the other hand you have to manage the second time control {JW} e gxf xf4 xb2 48.g5= {NV}. 47. f2 gxf4 48. b8 b3 In case of g3 White makes a draw by 49.b6 xg4: 50. c8 g7! 51. c7 (51.b3! {GKm} 51...cxb3 52. c3 b7 53. xb3 c5 54. f3 xb6 55. xf4 e7= (?)) g3 52.b4 b3 +; 50. f8 g7 51. xf4 c5 {NV}. Maybe this engame with + c and d- vs. + 2 b- is lost. The king on f2 is too bad {JW}; 50. f3! g3+ [50... g7 51. xf4 d4 52.b7 f g5 d5 54. g6 f2 (54... d7 55. f5=) 55. d8 xb2 56.b8 xb8 57. xb8= {NV}] 51. xf4 b3 52.b7 xb2 53. e3 and Black is unable to preserve both pawns e.g b3+ (53... c6 54. c8+; b4 54. d2 c6 55. c3) 54. d2 d4 55. d8= {MN}. 49.b6?! ¹49.g5!?: e4 50.g6 xb e1 g2 52.b6 xg6 53.b7 d3 54. a8 g f2 b1 56.b8 xb8 57. xb8 d5= {NV}; e5 50.b6 {SS} [50.g6? f6 51. d8 xg6 52. xd6+ f5 53. c6 xb f3 b f2 b4 56. f3 e5 + {JW}] xb f3 c3 52. e8+ f5 53. f8+ xg5 54. xf4 c2 55. c4 is drawish {JW}; 73

73 GAME 13 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND xb f3 e5 51.b6! [51.g6 b g4 (52. f2 f6 53. d8 xg6 54. xd6+ f5 55. c6 b4!µ {SS}) g h5 d5 or 53...f3 {NV}] 51...c3 (51... b g4!) 52. e8+ f5 53. f8+ xg5 54. xf4 xb6 (54...c2 55. c4 d5 56. c8 f5 57. e3=) 55. c4 b3 56. e4 f6 57. d5 e7 58. c7+ d8 59. c6= {SS} e4 Of course xb2+ is another continuation that should be calculated. White s general idea is to trade the b-pawn for the d-pawn, then to give up the rook for the c-pawn and to come in time with the king to help the g-pawn. It seems he s able to achieve it though I can t state it with certainty. Here are some lines I managed to jot down 50. f3: d4 51.g5 c3 52.g6 c2 53. c8 b g4! c3 55. xc3 xc3 56.b7 c1 57.b8 =; e5 51.g5! {SS} - 49.g5 [51.b7 b f2 d4 53.g5 c3 54.g6 c2 {NV}]; 50...c3 51.b7 [51. c8? d4 52.g5 (52. c6 d5 53.g5 c2 54.g6 b g4 xb6 56. xc2 xg xf4 f6+ + {LW}) xb6 53.g6 b7 54. xf4 d5 55. f5 d3 56. f6 d4 57.g7 xg7 58. xg7 c2! and Black wins but not 58...c2 59. f6 d2 60. e5 d3 61. e4 and the white king comes back in time] d4 52. d8 xb7 53. xd6+ c4 (53... c5 54. d1 f7 55.g5 c4 56.g6 g7 57. d6 c5 58. d3 c4 59. d6 c7 60. d1 c6 61.g7 g6 62. d7 c2 63. c7+= {LR}) 54. c6+ b3 55.g5 c2 56.g6! b2 (56... g7 57. b6+! c3 58. c6+ d2 59. d6+ c1 60. c6!= not 60. xf4? c7!) 57. xf4 c xc1 xc1 59. f5 with a draw {MN}. 50. e8+ d3?! d4!?µ {ICC} 51.g5 [51. e2 f3 52. e6 (52. e1 d5 53.g5 xb xf3 xb6 {Boba}; 52. d2+ e4 53. xd6 xb g3 c3! 55. e6+ d5 56. e1 f2 57. c1 c4 58. g2 d3 59.g5 d2 60. f1 c2 61. xf2+ e3 {SS}) xb xf3 xb6 54. e4+ (54.g5 c3 55. e2 b d1 d5) d3 55. e3+ d2 56. e2+ d1 57. g2 c3 58. e3 b3 + {Boba}] xb f3 xb6 53.g6 b7 54. xf4 (54. e2 c3 55. g2 g7 56. xf4 d5 57. f5 d3 58. f6 c2 59. xg7 c1 ; 54. e1 c3 55. d1+ e5 56. e1+ f5 57. e4 c7 58.g7 xg7 59. xf4+ e6 60. c4 h7µ) 54...c3 55. f5 (55. c8 d5 56. f5 d3 57. f6 d4 +; 55. e4+ d3 56. e3+ d2 57. e6 d7) 55...c2 56. c8 b f6 c5! + {Boba} at wdwdrdwd DwDwDwDw w)w0wdwd DwDwDwDw wdpdw0pd DrDkDwDw w)wdwiwd DwDwDwDw DECISIVE GAMES IN THE HISTORY If Kramnik, who has White, does not win the 14th and last game, he will lose the title, and the Hungarian Grandmaster will become the 15th Classical World Champion. It s time now to recall the forecasts of our CT journalists, given before the match start. Five of our guys predicted that Kramnik would win. Ruslan Scherbakov s choice was +1 =1 12. As it turns out this outcome will not happened. The two remaining predictions were +2 =11 1 in Leko s favour, predicted by Nikolai Vlassov, and +2 =10 2 which was my prediction. There are good chances that, one of us, Nikolay or me, will be right. A win for Leko in game 14 looks like a most improbable outcome. He will be happy to agree to a draw at any given moment, like, for example, what Max Euwe did in the decisive game of his 1935 match against Alexander Alekhine. Let s recall several decisive games in the history of the Classical World Chess Championship matches: Lasker-Schlechter (game 10) 1-0. Schlechter led before the game, 5-4. But Lasker won and preserved his title Euwe-Alekhine (game 30) ½-½. Euwe led, He agreed to a draw in a winning position on move 40 and became the Champion Bronstein-Botvinnik (game 24) ½-½. Bronstein needed to win to became the Champion. Being a pawn down, he agreed to a draw on move Botvinnik-Smyslov (game 24) ½-½. Smyslov needed to win to became the Champion. Agreed to a draw in a worse position on move Karpov-Kortschnoj (game 32) 1-0. It was an unlimited match, the draws were not counted match ended until one of the players scored six wins. The situation before the 32nd game (5-5) was, at least formally, the most tense in the history of unlimited matches Karpov-Kasparov (game 24) 0-1. Karpov needed a victory to preserve his title. He refused a repetition of moves on move 31 and lost on move Kasparov-Karpov (game 24) 1-0. Kasparov needed to win to equalize the score and retain his title. He began the game with 1.c4, obtained a big advantage, spoiled it on move 33, but Karpov didn t find the correct answer, and White won on move Kramnik-Leko (game 14). The history is to be written today. MIKHAIL GOLUBEV, Chess Today 74

74 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 13 The only chance. Without d5 Black can t make any progress {JW}. 52. f3 52.g5?? xb6 + {LW} d4 53.g5 c xb6 54. h2 c3 55.bxc3 dxc3 56. h6 (56. xf4=) b4 57. c6 c2 58.g6 d2 59.g7 b8 60. xf4 {NV}. 54.bxc3 dxc3 55. g2 55. e1 c2 56.g6 d f2 xb6 {NV}. 55.g6 xb6 (55...c2 56. xc2 xc xf4) 56.g7 {NV} b2!? 55...c2 56. xc2 xc xf4 xb6 58. f5= {MN}. 56.b7! 56.g6 xg2 57. xg2= {NV} 57...c2 58.g7 c1 59.g8 f h2!³ {SS} xb7 57. xf4 b2 58. g1 c2 51. e2! Suddenly changing the method of defence Leko obtains a position where the draw is relatively simple. The white rook protects the b2-pawn not allowing Black to get the pair of passers {MN} d5 Albert Vasse wdwdwdwd DwDwDwDw wdwdwdwd DwDwDw)w wdwdwiwd DwDkDwDw w4pdwdwd DwDwDw$w 59. c1 b1 60. xc2 xc2 61.g6 d3 62. f5 b f6 b f7 xg6 65. xg6 ½-½ Leko did a great job in defending this endgame and Kramnik must be really disappointed as he was really near the victory... {JW}. 75

75 GAME 14 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND 14. KRAMNIK - LEKO CARO-KANN DEFENCE - B12 Vladimir Kramnik from Russia is still the World Chess Champion. In the last and decisive game at the Centro Dannemann, he defeated his challenger Peter Leko (Hungary) in a dramatic game after four hours and 41 moves. The 29 year old Russian, who was one point down since game 8, today turned the tables and equalized the score. With a final result of 7 to 7 points, Kramnik as titleholder remains the World Champion. I had to give everything, especially at the end, to win against such an opponent. Peter Leko is an incredible defencer. For me it was more difficult than my match against Kasparov in the year 2000, said Kramnik after the game. The challenger said: It was a very hard fight. In the end it was not enough for me to win the title. I m disappointed, but I m looking forward to the future. I m 25 years old, and I hope to get a new chance to become World Champion. It was a Caro Kann defence once again. Kramnik chose a sharp variation and got an advantage out of the opening. Leko defended well and was able to neutralize some threats and to reach the endgame, which looked only slightly better for the World Champion. But here Kramnik started to play really impressive chess. With a positional pawn sacrifice he managed to break into the black position. Suddenly his pieces became coordinated ideally. When he pushed his f-pawn, black defence started to collapse. Facing inevitable checkmate in two moves, Leko resigned the game. 1.e4 In the final fight, Kramnik uses the same first move, which has brought him many good positions, but not one victory {NV}. 1...c6 As safe as possible {NV}. A risky choice according to Leko but he only had a limited number of defences possible {MC}. In the opinion of Leko s supporters (rec.games.chess.misc, etc), he should have played 1...e5 {MG}. 2.d4 d5 3.e5 f5 4.h4 A rare variation. Tal played the same in his revenge-match against Botvinnik but without success. This move occured in the games of Keres and Bronstein. But all these chessplayers had styles which were much different from Kramnik s {NV}. 4. c3 e6 5.g4 g6 6. ge2 is the main line and 4. f3 e6 5. e2 a modern quiet line popularized by Nigel Short and Boris Gelfand {CB}. 4...h6 Our reader, Steven Craig Miller, asked us after the game: I wonder if you would be so kind as to comment on why 4...h6 was played? I would have assumed that Black played 4...h6 so to play 5... h7 after g4, but White played 5.g4 and then Leko 76

76 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 14 played 5... d7. So what was the point of 4...h6? While I am not an expert in the 3.e5 Caro-Kann, and especially the 4.h4 line (which is, statistically, still the most important of White s sidelines), I can try to explain this in following way: 4...h6 is a generally, solid and useful move in these kinds of positions. Black s main idea is to followup with 5...e6, after that he will stay very firmly, and will always have the possibility to retreat with the bishop to h7 if necessary. White can prevent this plan only by the strategically risky 5.g4!? (the move which Black, generally, provokes by playing 4...h6). After 5.g4, 5... h7 can be parried by the dangerous 6.e6 (similarily, 5... e4 6.f3 followed by 7.e6!?). So, Black s safest option after 5.g4 is 5... d7 with a controversial, complex position where both sides has their trumps. Note that Black s main move after 4.h4 is 4...h5, which is approximately twice as popular as 4...h6. It has its own pros and cons - obviously, it weakens the g5 square and leads to very different positions {MG}. 4...h5 5.c4 e6 6. c3 e7 7.g3, Topalov-Bareev, Cap d Agde 2003 (½-½, 57) {CB}. 5.g4 d h7 6.e6 d6 7.exf7+ xf7 8. c3 e5 9. f3+ f6 10.g5 hxg5 11.hxg5 e4 12. xe4 dxe4 13. b3+ d5 14. xh8 exd4 15. e2 d7 16. xd4 e5 17. xb7 b4+ 18.c3 xh8 19. xd7+ g6 20. xc6 xc d1 f5 22. xf5+ 1 0, Sveshnikov-Gagunashvili, Dubai 2003 {CB}. rhw1kgn4 0pDb0p0w wdpdwdw0 DwDp)wDw wdw)wdp) DwDwDwDw P)PDw)wD $NGQIBHR 6. d2n This is a novelty! White prepares himself for the anticipated move c6-c5 - the white knight on d2 is getting ready to support the pawn on c5 from b3 after the capture. In the past White has tried many other moves, the most common choice being 6.h5 {NV}. Novelty in move six! Maybe, Kramnik asks himself why to play 6.h5 (what happened in many games)? He just wanted to develop a knight - the other one could go only to h3 as the queen on d1 has to defend g4. Tal has used this line in his match against Botvinnik in He was not very successful: +1=1 2 even if he won the following: 6.h5 c5 7.c3 c6 8. h3 e6 9. e3 b6 10. b3 cxd4 11. xb6 axb6 12.cxd4 a5 13. c3 b5 14. f1 b4 15. b5 d8 16. f3 c4 17. xc4 dxc4 18. d6 xd6 19.exd6 c6 20. e5 xh1 21. xf7+ e8 22. xh8 e4 23.d5 exd5 24. d4 f6 25. e2 d7 26. f7 e6 27. e5 xd6 28.f3 h7 29.g5 hxg5 30.h6 gxh6 31. f7+ e6 32. xh6 g8 33. g4 f5 34. e3 g6 35. g4 f5 36. e3 g6 37. g4 d6 38. e5 f5 39. f7+ d7 40. xg5 e7 41.f4 c6 42. f3 d6 0 1, Tal- Botvinnik, Moscow 1961 {RK}. A new move already. It s very early but you have to consider Kramnik s opening a success. He has all the pieces and pawns on the board in an unusual and unbalanced position. Leko isn t a Caro-Kann player and the positions don t come naturally to him. You could say the same about Kramnik, who only recently returned to 1.e4. 6. e3 c5 7.c3 c6 8.a3 a5 9.b3 e6 10.h5 b5 11. f3 b8 12. g2 c4 13.bxc4 bxc4 14. c2 a4 15. bd2 a b3 17. a2, Bronstein-Donner, Budapest 1961 (1 0,32). 6.c3 c5 [6...e6 7.h5 c5 8.f4 b6 9. f3 b5 10. xb5+ xb5 11. a3 b6 12.dxc5 xc5 13.b4 e3 14. d3 xc1 15. xc1, Kotronias-David,A, Plovdiv 2003 (1 0, 39)] 7. g2 e6 8. e2 b5 9. a3 xe2 10. xe2 cxd4 11.cxd4 xa3 12.bxa3 c6 13. e3 a f1 ge7 15. b1 b8 16. h3 a4 17. d1 xa3 18. g2 a6, Tal-Botvinnik, Moscow 1961 (0 1, 41) 6.c4 e6 7. c3 e7 8.c5 b6 9.h5 bxc5 10.dxc5 c8 11. e3 a6 12. xa6 xa6 13. a4, Bronstein- Portisch, Moscow 1961 (½ ½, 49). 6...c5 As anticipated! {NV}. If Black plays not aggressive, let s say with 6...e6, then White can play f4, c3, e2, f3 and he would have a nice French advanced variation {RK}. The normal reaction, hitting the advanced center as quickly as possible {CB}. 7.dxc5 Now not 7.c3?! c6! {RK}. 7.c3 might maintain the pawn center, but the structure would become static and predictable. Kramnik needs to keep the position dynamic {CB}. 7...e6 I do not like 7...e6, as the little pressure on g4 has gone. Now White can develop easy {RK}. I thought that Leko would play 7... c6!, after which White s position does not look harmonious. Maybe I am just entirely wrong, but am not sure if he has equality here {MG}. Here, Sergey Shipov (ChessPro.ru) agreed with me: in his opinion, 7... c6 was called for {MG}. 8. b3 rhw1kgn4 0pDbDp0w wdwdpdw0 Dw)p)wDw wdwdwdp) DNDwDwDw P)PDw)wD $wgqibhr 8... xc5 Leko gets the pawn back easily, exchanging 77

77 GAME 14 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND bishop for knight. The wish to simplify is understandable - who wouldn t feel the same way in Leko s place? {NV}. In my view another dubious decision by Black. Black should have preserved his dark-squared bishop at any cost. No one so far agreed with my opinion that this move is a mistake. But, what to do, I still dislike it {MG}. 9. xc5 a5+ Here is Leko s idea, he wins the pawn back but giving a bishop for a knight cannot be good here. For Kramnik this is an ideal situation: with the pair of bishops he can pressure for a long time {RK}. 10.c3 xc5 Now White has some stable advantage (²), and his play is not so difficult. I expected Kramnik to follow with an early h5 soon, but probably it was not really necessary {MG}. Black is perfectly OK here both Kramnik and Leko agreed on this after the game {MC}. 11. f3 Fritz would like 11. e3 and then 12.f4 more. But this would be compromising {RK} e7 It s not so easy for White to complete his development here. He has to pay attention to weaknesses on e5 and g4, but Vladimir finds good squares for his pieces {NV}. For Leko it is not easy to find a good plan here; short castle looks impossible, opening the position with f6 fits more to the white bishops and on long castle will also follow a white attack {RK}. rhwdkdw4 0pDbhp0w wdwdpdw0 Dw1p)wDw wdwdwdp) Dw)wDNDw P)wDw)wD $wgqibdr 12. d3 I do not like this move as 12.h5 would have prevent e7-g6 much better. Thanks to 12. d3 Leko got ideas: d5-d4 and e7-g6 {RK} bc6 Black threats 13...d4 now {RK}. 13. e3 a5 14. d2 Albert Vasse Defending against the threat of d5-d4 {NV}. Again White must find something against d5-d4 and e7-g d2 is very strong and the solution for both problems. With 14. c2 Kramnik would prevent both ideas, but Black plays c8 and the white queen must leave c2. After 14. e2 g6 White can defend e5 only by taking on g6. But then there is no pair of bishops for White {RK} g6 Looks solid 14...d4 at a different stage in the match Leko would have played this dynamic move. Its unclear which is why Leko rejected it also possible {MC}. What else? Fritz says 14...d4, but I m not sure that Black receives enough for the sacrificed pawn {RK} d4!? a surprising pawn sacrifice suggested by Garry Kasparov on playchess.com. It s a move you would expect from Kasparov, activating the black pieces and gaining the powerful d5 square for a knight: 15.cxd4 b (16. b1 c6 17. h3) d5 17. e2 b5 18. xb5+ xb5 19. fc1 b6 (19... ed5 {CB}). rdwdkdw4 0pDbDp0w wdndpdn0 1wDp)wDw wdwdwdp) Dw)BGNDw P)w!w)wD $wdwiwdr 15. d4! A nasty shock for Leko. He didn t take this possibility seriously before it was played and didn t seem in the spirit of Kramnik s play so far. The endgame is far from easy for Leko but should in the final analysis be OK {MC}. 78

78 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 14 White protect e5 without taking on g6 {RK}. 15. xg6 fxg6 is rather good for Black - the f-file is useful for attack. Kramnik must allow the simplification to the endgame {NV} xd4 And Peter can t resist the temptation! Not a bad alternative was c7 16. e3 xd4 17.cxd4 b6 and Black has a safe position {NV}. I certainly would prefer to be White here !?², etc. {MG}. 16.cxd4 xd b6 17. c1= {CB}. 17. xd2 rdwdkdw4 0pDbDp0w wdwdpdn0 DwDp)wDw wdw)wdp) DwDBDNDw P)wIw)wD $wdwdwdr So, the sharpest line in this opening has lead to a standard endgame with a microscopic advantage for White - just right for Kramnik s style. White s bishop is better than Black s and he has a space advantage; all of which gives hope for a fight for White {NV}. It seems that in this kind of position it s quite important for Black to prepare f6 at some point. He has no other ideas, and passive play can gradually lead him to collapse. White s long-term plan is h5 (likely), and then preparation for the pawn advance f2-f4-f5 or g4-g5: both of these ideas can be dangerous for Black {MG} f4 An active move and maybe the reason for further difficulties for Black e7 deserved attention with the idea of c6, the king on e7 and develop the idea of f7-f6 clinging to the e5-pawn. The bishop could come into play via e8 in some cases. This is a standard safe plan, well-known, e.g. from the games of Mikhail Gurevich {NV} 18. ac1 a6! followed by c6, e7 {SS}. 18. ac1! There s is no point in being afraid of exchanges. Peter wouldn t like to remain with a bad bishop against the knight {NV}. Again a good move, Black has no time for h6-h5 now. After 18. f1 (with the threat 19.h5) Black plays 18...h5 19. e3!? then g6 20.gxh5 or probably better 19...hxg4 20. xf4 gxf3. Fritz sees a big advantage for White, but positions with h6-h5 and g4-g5 are often dead draws {RK} h5 Black weakens the white pawns on kingside, but from the other side this opens g-file for White. And to provide the fixed stop on h5 to his knight is against the rules as well - Tarrasch would not be pleased. It s not clear that White would be able to win in this position after xd3 19. xd3 b e3 d7 {NV}. Maybe Kramnik would not win in this position, but he would torment Leko for some hundred moves for sure! and Shipov gives the approximate continuation 21.h5! ac8 22. h4 xc1 23. xc1 c8 24. xc8 xc8 25.f4! d7 26.f5, claiming that White should win {MG}. Leko stood by this move after the game and that he should always play to the maximum rather than passive defence. He said that he had defended dynamically throughout the match and wasn t going to change now xd3 19. xd3 and grovelling defence but perhaps this was a better practical choice {MC}. 19. hg1 19. c7!? was discussed on the ICC. But, of course, it looks rather double-edged - at least at first glance. 19.g5? looks like a bad idea here - White would have no play on the kingside at all {MG} c6?! Bishop is too passive here, playing the role of pawn and preventing invasion on c7. Maybe it was worth exchanging a pair of rooks? After c8 20. xc8+ xc8 21.gxh5 xh5 22. c1 d8 23. g5 f8 24. e3 f6 and it looks like Black can defend himself, by placing the bishop on e8 {NV}. I had the wrong impression that Kramnik underestimated or even overlooked h3!? {Leko}. In fact, this move would hardly have solved all of Black s problems after 20. g3!? {MG}. 20.gxh5 xh a5! {SS}. rdwdkdw4 0pDwDp0w wdbdpdwd DwDp)wDn wdw)wdw) DwDBDNDw P)wIw)wD Dw$wDw$w 21.b4! Kramnik plays the position with the energy it requires to exploit his lead in development and the awkward black pieces. Leko never recovers {CB} a6 The critical position. If Black managed to put his king on d7, his fortress would have almost been unassailable, specially after g6 and g7. But Kramnik found a possibility apparently missed by Leko {NV}. 79

79 GAME 14 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND rdwdkdw4 DpDwDp0w pdbdpdwd DwDp)wDn w)w)wdw) DwDBDNDw PDwIw)wD Dw$wDw$w 22.a4!! A pawn sacrifice in or to break to c7 {NV}. I expected Kramnik to play slower: 22. e3² {MG}. The threat of b5 and c7 forces Leko to lose time or play a pawn grab {CB} d8? Kramnik has frightened Leko. It was, however, worth a try to capture the pawn: xa4 Taking on a4 was the last chance to make a draw, I do not know for what else he might have hoped {GK} 23. c7 and to give it back immediately by b5! By giving up a pair of pawns on the queenside, Black allows his rooks to gain activity on a-file and acquires good chances for a draw. Worse is g5 b5 25. h7+ h8 26. c2 g8 27. d1 f4 28. e3 g6 29.h5 h4 30. g4 and quite bad is c6 24. g e3 ac8 26. xc8 xc8 27. e2 g6 28. xh5 gxh5 29. xe6++- {NV}. The risky continuation xa4!? was also suggested by Kasparov as a way to break the pattern of the game, 23. c7 b5 (23... c6? 24. g h7+ h8 26. c2) 24. b1 maintaining the threat of g5 (24. xb5+ axb5 25. gc xb7 {Kasparov} 26...f6 27.exf6 xf6 28. c3) d7 (24...b6!?) 25. g5 f8 26. d3 e7 27. e3 b5 28. xf7 xf7 29. g6 f4 30. xh5 e d3 d8 32. b7 c8 33. b6 {CB} e7 23.b5 axb5 24.axb5 d7 25. c7 b6 26. e3 {SS}. 23. g5 For the first time Fritz sees and advantage of more than one pawn for White {RK}. One look at the four rooks shows how much trouble Leko is in despite the simplified position. White s advantage in development is close to overwhelming and there are too many weaknesses in the black position {CB}. KRAMNIK BACKS OFF FROM REUNIFICATION? Brief look at an interview held by Yuri Vasilyev, correspondant of the russian paper Sport-Express; read full text p.84. MARSHALL GAME The line was prepared by Kramnik s team before the game. They considered 22. e4 (with some slight advantage), but at the last moment found also 22.axb5. They had no time for detailed study and checking with computer, so Kramnik decided to think at the board on this, if the position arose. Leko was in time trouble, that s why Kramnik played so quickly. He even saw (?) d3! when he played 22.axb5. PSYCHOLOGY After his win in the 8th game Leko had started to feel increasing psychological pressure. It was similar to the situation in the Kasparov-Kramnik 2000 match when the challenger (then Kramnik) also led. FIDE Kramnik confirmed that, if FIDE would not agree to a dialogue with him and the ACP, then the ACP will go its own way. He is ready to discuss conditions on which the unification can take place. In principle, his attitude to the idea of unification is positive. In Kramnik s opinion development of chess should be related with corporate sponsors and with civilised European countries. If FIDE does not like this, he will not work with them. Kramnik does not see prospects in the direction which is taken [by FIDE] now. KASIMDZHANOV-KASPAROV Kasimdzhanov, of course deserved the match with the great player Kasparov. But I do not understand, for what reason they will play for a World Championship Vasilyev said that Kramnik put his signature under the prospect of this match. Kramnik answers: Sorry. I put my signature under the Ponomariov-Kasparov match. And here were other conditions which were not accomplished (fulfilled). Kramnik proposes to organize, instead of the Kasimdzhanov-Kasparov match, a tournament with the participation of Kasparov, Kasimdzhanov, Anand and Ponomariov. The winner will play the unification match against him, Kramnik. Kramnik will play in the Russian Championship his year. (Leko earlier said he will not play till Wijk aan Zee.) 80

80 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME e8 If this move is necessary then Black really is lost already! e7 24. e3± or 24.b5 axb5 25.axb5 d7 26. c7 {CB}. 24.b5 24. e3 looked attractive, restricting the knight, but Vladimir rushes to the c7-square! {NV} f4 Relatively better was 24...axb5 25. xb5 (25.axb5? f4) even if f4 (25...b6 26. xe8 xe8 (26... xe8 27. c7) 27. xf7+ {CB}) 26. e3 f6 27. f7+ xf7 28. xg7 g xg2 fxe5 30.dxe5 e8 is not a big pleasure for the second player {SS}. 25.b6 After the game Kramnik told Beat Zueger I was happy when I played b6. {MC}. Ignoring the attack on his bishop, Kramnik begins to establish the bind that will strangle Black until the end. The rest of the game is almost painful to watch as Leko struggles for freedom without giving up too much material. Kramnik controls the position with an iron hand {CB}. rdwibdw4 DpDwDp0w p)wdpdwd DwDp)wHw PDw)whw) DwDBDwDw wdwiw)wd Dw$wDw$w xd f6 26. f3 h5 27. xg7 xf3 28.exf6 {MC} c8 26. xc8+ xc8 27. c1+ b8 28. c7 is helpless for Black {RK}. 26. xd3 Black s position is hopelessly passive - after series of forced moves {NV}. Now Black is definitely in desperate trouble. Although Kramnik makes it look comparatively easy he is very accurate in finishing the game {MC}. rdwibdw4 DpDwDp0w p)wdpdwd DwDp)wHw PDw)wDw) DwDKDwDw wdwdw)wd Dw$wDw$w c8 27. xc8+ xc8 28. c1+ c6 Passive defense is hopeless: b8 29. c7 f8 [29... xh4 30. xf7 xf7 31. xf7 h d2 c8 33. c7+ d8 (33... b8 34. xg7) 34. xb7] 30.a5 and Black will soon run out of moves and enter zugzwang {CB}. 29. xf7 xh4 30. d6+ A knight on the sixth rank practically wins the game by itself. A better example of this old maxim is hard to imagine, although here the b6- pawn helps quite a bit {CB} d8 31. g1 wdwiwdwd DpDwDw0w p)bhpdwd DwDp)wDw PDw)wDw4 DwDKDwDw wdwdw)wd DwDwDw$w h3+ After h7 Black is simply paralysed {MG}. 32. e2 a a5 33. xg7 b3 34. xb7+ xb7 35. xb7+- or h4 33. e3 h7 34.a5+- {CB}. 33. xg7 xa4 And the final without any difficult move to see, is nevertheless spectacular (which was, as I guess, indeed not so easy to foresee in the certain time trouble {MG}). wdwiwdwd DpDwDw$w p)bhpdwd DwDp)wDw rdw)wdwd DwDwDwDw wdwdk)wd DwDwDwDw 34.f4!+- Looks like a winner. Perhaps even after 31. g1 this could also be said {MC}. Kramnik heads directly for the winning e6 breakthrough. 34. xb7+ give up such a knight for the pathetic bishop? xb7 35. xb7² {CB} a2+ The idea was xd4 35.f5! exf5 36.e6 e xe4 dxe4 38. c7! and White wins {MG}. 35. f3 a g4 f5 can t be stopped {CB} d3 81

81 GAME 14 / CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND Computers start to say White is winning very clearly {MC}. Now it ends quickly, although at this point Leko could only hope to complicate and induce a blunder. Playing for checks could have delayed things only a little a1 37. xb7+ with the white king so far up the board, the rook endgame is a piece of cake: xb7 38. xb7 g1+ (38... b1 39.f5 g h5 exf5 41. a7) 39. h5 d1 or c8+- {CB}. 37.f5 xd4+ Now finally computers were saying the position was lost {MC}. Fritz now announced mate d1 38.f6 xd f3 d2 40. g8+ d7+-; 37...exf xf5 h3 39. c7 {CB}. 38. g5 exf e8 39.fxe6 d1 40. xb7 g h4 h g3 g h2 g7 44. b8+ e7 45. xe8# {Fritz}. 39. f6 g4 40. c7 40. h7 g8 41.e6 e8 42. c7 f f7+ xf7+ 44.exf7 f4 45.f8 + e8 46. e7# {Fritz} h4 KRAMNIK RETAINS WORLD TITLE In the final position of the 14th game, Leko resigned in view of mate in two. Objectively, speaking, what we saw was not really a great game from the point of view of chess. Peter Leko couldn t survive an incredibly tense game and played a truly horrific game, possibly below his normal level even in simultaneous display games. Nevertheless, Vladimir Kramnik can be praised not only for the decent, aggressive play in the final game, but also for the permanent pressure, which he managed to develop in the finals few games. Perhaps, it was this pressure that destroyed to a great degree Leko s concentration and confidence at the very end of the match. The situation was akin to one which often appears in soccer. The score suits one of the teams, but the other manages to attack continuously over and over again. Anything can happen in such a situation, but most often the team, which attacks, at some point scores a goal, which turns the tables. No doubt, the outcome of the match can be called a tragedy for Peter Leko, who showed some fantastic chess in Brissago and was very close to the title. Still, in an historical perspective, he is in more than decent company. The challengers, who managed to make draws in matches against reigning Champions were the great Schlechter and Bronstein. And also Smyslov, who obtained the right to another World Championship match against Botvinnik in three years after their draw - and used his second chance convincingly. Maybe, one can suggest to Peter Leko to speak with Vassily Smyslov. Or to read some of Smyslov s books at least. In the end, Smyslov lost in 1954 much more the truly unified world s crown. Even Fischer had no claims then. The long story short of the match: Game 1. Leko has White. Petroff. Kramnik s novelty. Leko loses track in complicated endgame (65 moves) Game 2. Kramnik has White. Ruy Lopez. Equality, draw (18 moves) Game 3. Leko has White. Petroff. Another Kramnik s novelty. Exchanges, draw (23 moves) Game 4. Kramnik has White. Ruy Lopez. Lanka s Anti-Marshall. Kramnik gets extra pawn in rook endgame. Not enough. Draw (43 moves) Game 5. Leko has White. Queen s Gambit declined. Theoretical endgame. White s advantage is minimal. But Leko wins (69 moves) Game 6. Kramnik has White. Lanka s Anti-Marschall. Leko at least equalizes, draw agreed (20 moves) Game 7. Leko has White. Slav Defence. Kramnik plays rare line, equalizes. Exchanges, draw (21 moves) Game 8. Kramnik has White. Allows Marshall Attack. Plays quickly. Loses by force. Total mystery (32 moves) Game 9. Leko has White. Queen s Indian. Leko has small advantage. But does not know what to do. Draw in still known position (16 moves) Game 10. Kramnik has White. Ruy Lopez, 5... c5. Big advantage. Leko escapes. Draw (35 moves) Game 11. Leko has White. Queen s Indian. Repetition. Draw. Even more boring than game 9 (17 moves) Game 12. Kramnik has White. Classical Caro-Kann. Kramnik pushes. Great defence. Leko is slightly better in the end. Draw (34) Game 13. Leko has White. Kramnik plays Benoni, wants to win. Almost succeeds. Draw (65 moves) Game 14. Kramnik has White. Caro-Kann, Advanced Variation. Kramnik wins easily (41 moves) MIKHAIL GOLUBEV, Chess Today 82

82 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND / GAME 14 A relieved Svidler let out a sigh of relief whispered to me that its mate in three {MC} d7 41. xb7+ e8 42. d6+ d8 43. f7+ e8 44.b7 {Fritz}. wdwiwdwd Dp$wDwDw p)bhwiwd DwDp)pDw wdwdwdw4 DwDwDwDw wdwdwdwd DwDwDwDw The winner, Vladimir Kramnik, gets the World Championship trophy from Dannemann's Brazil chief Hans Leusen after the match. 41. f f7+ e8 42. c8+ d7 43. d8# It s mate. A brilliant, if one-sided, performance. Or maybe Kramnik just made it look easy against one of the best defenders in the world {CB}. And having played almost to mate, Leko resigned. Vladimir managed to repeat Kasparov s feat in Sevilla, where he needed to win the last game to retain his title. He thus became the 3rd person in the History of the World Chess Championship, to accomplish this. Together with undying glory he will certainly receive a fly in the ointment - somebody will say that this match was fixed also. But this is a rubbish if compared to the Title of World Champion! {NV}. My gratulations to Vladimir Kramnik, who defended his World Championship title. Only Lasker and Kasparov managed to maintain the title in a must win situation in the last round. Kramnik can be very proud in doing the same. And he did it with a fine game. Let s hope for ChessBase more matches of this quality. Leko was a strong challenger, maybe he was too peaceful in one or two games. But a 7:7 is not bad at all against the World Champion {RK}. Classical World Championship, Brissago Kramnik,Vladimir RUS ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 7.0/ Leko,Peter HUN ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 7.0/

83 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND VLADIMIR KRAMNIK «READY FOR A CIVILIZED DIALOG WITH FIDE» The following interview appeared on the Russian sport portal Sport Express and was conducted by chess journalist Yuri Vasiliev from Brissago. Here the text in English language with the kind permission of Yuri Vasiliev. Our conversation with the classic World Chess Champion took place in the Ascona hotel in the city with the same name, a few kilometers from the place where his match with Peter Leko was held and from here I am sharing this material. Much of what was said by the Champion was quite surprising to me. It will be as well surprising to the reader. But Kramnik is the Champion, and he is entitled to Champion s opinion. WHAT A WARM UP! Question: How did you prepare for your match? Was it any different to the preparation for the match vs. Kasparov in London? Answer: Everything was the same. My team of seconds and I rented a house near Monaco, we had our own chef, we didn t prepare for too long, but it was productive. Q: Before your match vs. Kasparov you were very inspired, but here it seemed like you didn t take the preparation so seriously. For example, you became sick at the start of the match, which doesn t happen when one is at very high spirits. What happened? Perhaps, you underestimated Leko? A: No, I always estimated Leko correctly. It s just that a challenger s initial motivation is always greater than that of a defending Champion. This is always the case, and always will be. His motivation is natural, but my motivation is coming from my head, it needs to be nurtured I remember this from my match with Kasparov Then I became sick. In several games I felt so sick, that I could hardly play physically. This was the case in game 9, in which I had an extra hour on the clock, but simply could not sit at the table. Q: Something serious? A: I would rather not talk about this, I will only say, that in the future, I doubt I would let this happen again Q: Perhaps a super- tournament in Dortmund has had its ill effects; it was supposed to be played in classic chess time controls but later became a rapid tournament. A: It seemed that Dortmund tournament was needed (for match preparation). I wanted to warm up, to feel the play, I didn t want to think about anything. However, all these plans became just a dream, because in the end I had to give everything I had. Q: Fighting for prestige? A: Yes, we are after all professionals. We have to always save face. As a result I played 23 games in 11 days a completely unbelievable amount! And absolutely needless overload right before the start of very important training. The goal was warm up, but as a result I had to recuperate two weeks just to get back the strength after such a warm up. PROGRAM FOR LEKO Q: You are obviously satisfied with the performance of your team? A: Yes, I am satisfied. Although, as it happened most of the work prepared by the team never played out on the board. That is not the fault of my team, but more likely an accomplishment by Leko, who 84

84 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND demonstrated an unbelievable preparation. The effectiveness of the team was less evident because Leko jumped openings, it was impossible to predict what he may play next time. In the match with Kasparov, where we had theoretical discussions in a number of openings, the role of the team was more noticeable. Here, the guys are working at night, looking at one thing, but the next day what occurs on the board is completely different. Q: Do you remember, when during a Novgorod tournament, ten years ago I asked you: when will you start playing 1.e4?! And you kept telling me: time will come, and I will begin to play 1.e4. Time has come? Why has it coincided with the Leko match? A: I play 1.e4 only a few years, this is of course not enough to completely and deeply feel all the positions. I understood that this decision is somewhat risky, but one of the reasons to learn a new opening sphere is the desire to continue to develop. Q: Do you want to say that you decided to develop during the match for World Championship?! A: But prior to the match in Brissago I constantly experimented, playing 1.e4. And if I still played d4 (in the match) then what was the point of it?! When I began to master e4, I already understood, that in a match against Leko I will play exactly so. This was a long-term program. Q: Were you surprised that Leko was really well prepared to 1.e4? A: I am sure that he was equally well prepared to meet 1.d4. Leko, in principal was very well prepared for everything. He had plenty of time to prepare for the match. I understood that he undertook thorough preparation in all directions of opening theory. And nonetheless, I was caught off guard by the sheer quality of his preparation! In every opening, in every variation I was met by a novelty! At first I could not begin to play my game. Q: Your preparation, in the end, turned out to be better, than Leko s? A walk around Ascona before the last game. A: I don t think so. Perhaps, only in the second half of the match; I started pressing a bit. In principle, in my first three games as White I didn t even get a trace of an advantage. And in the last games neither. There were a few games, where I was able to pose some problems for Peter, but not many. I think the theoretical duel was about even. GUESSING IS AN INTERESTING GAME Q: If this duel was about even, then could you explain why you went for a variation of the Queen s Gambit known to be bad in the 5th game, a game that you eventually lost? It s hard to believe that one can consciously go for a passive defense in the endgame, without one... A: After I jumped into the lead and began to easily solve problems as Black, I relaxed a bit. And at this point, Leko almost for the first time in his life plays d4! I understood that he may open with 1.d4, but I figured that I know a lot about 1.d4. I thought this was my territory; if he starts from the queen pawn, I ll play queen s gambit at first, and then we ll see... I was overly self-confident to this hypothetical possibility. But the possibility turned from hypothetical to quite concrete. When my opponent nonetheless played 1.d4 in game 5, I chose this variation. Why I chose it, I cannot explain even now. Because to go for that position, down a pawn is truly madness! Here you are absolutely right. During the game my personal inadequate decision (to go into a bad line) began to burden me. Bad thoughts started creeping into my head like: What kind of fool do you have to be, to voluntarily go into this absurd position In essence, overly self-confident attitude towards the fact that on my turf (d4 openings) I will somehow manage, lead at first to the inadequate decision-making, then to needless self-criticism and finally to losing the game Q: It was proven in the 10-page analysis on site chesspro.ru, that you still had a draw. But to find such subtleties over the board is probably not possible? A: To see everything, is of course, impossible. But it s possible to guess. If there is time for guessing and if you know in which direction to search. In general I knew. But everything I aforementioned, including being really upset at myself, robbed me of the necessary concentration, which in turn led to the miscalculation in a position where a draw was quite close to being achieved. Q: What about game 12, Leko didn t guess right? When he offered a draw in a position where he was up two pawns and all the chances to win Albert Vasse 85

85 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND A: Well I wouldn t be so categorical in claiming that he let his winning chances slip away. He had two extra pawns, but firstly one of them was doubled, and secondly the second one could not yet go forward. And then don t forget that Leko was entrenched in defense for the whole game, and psychologically it was difficult for him to shift gears and play for a win. He lost so many nerves during this game, that when the situation on the board began to swing his way, he could not find the power within him to play for a win. Q: This is the most difficult thing, in the game A: In reality, it s doubtful that any human can do it. THERE WERE NO OVER-THE-BOARD MOVES IN GAME 8 Q: What happened in the 8th game, in which you lost quite destructively, having made, as I wrote, only seven moves on your own? A: Why seven? Q: Well, until move 18 wasn t it all known?... A: I understand that it was well-known (theory) but what was known went even farther, much farther. Essentially, my own moves were not made in that game. Everything that occurred in the game was set up the day before on my board Q: H...O...W?!! A: Essentially, none (no moves beyond home prep) I was ready. I came to the game. I stopped the clock. Resigned. That s all I did in that game. And I even played White. It s just some kind of madness... Q: That s how it was? A: During preparation we looked at 22. e4. Seemed like White is better, but for you surely no losing chances. Right before we went outside, we found 22.axb, time did not allow us to study this continuation in detail, and I decided if this happens in a game, I will look at it then. If we didn t discover last minute the moves 22.axb, I would play 22. e4, make a draw and that s all. And here in addition Leko was in time trouble. If he had lets say 40 minutes or so, and not 15, then there would be no sense to rush. I would take my time, think and of course find the move 25. d3. But most curiously, that even the 25. d3 I saw, when I played 22.axb! Q: H...O...W?!! A: That s what makes the situation truly crazy! I saw this move, but somehow decided that if it s checked on the computer, then I wouldn t lose. Q: That means that it wasn t checked on the computer? A: We didn t have time to look, but I decided that we saw it Q: But Leko probably thought that you had looked at it since you played the moves so fast, so confidently? A: From Leko s standpoint this game is a remarkable achievement. Because he found everything over the board. From my standpoint sheer madness: to reward him with a whole point, without playing, having the white pieces. And this madness occurred in a World Championship match... INSTEAD OF THE GAS PEDAL, PRESSING THE BRAKE Q: How were you able to handle this stress, and gradually change the character of the match in your favor? A: After the win in this game Leko began to play more timidly. I was in the same situation in my match against Kasparov. In that match I dominated until game 10, and then tightened up, Kasparov just the opposite, having become loose and relaxed he began to press me. This is a unique characteristic of one s psyche: when you try to subconsciously safeguard what you earned already, you unintentionally hit the brakes. And when you have nothing to lose, you step on the gas as hard as you can. I understood perfectly, that he (Leko) will begin to tighten up. Q: So Leko in effect has helped you? A: Anyone would have helped. This phase of the match is the toughest for that person who is in the lead. Q: But you had to somehow increase pressure, and you couldn t afford to lose a single game A: Yes, the task seemed almost impossible also because Leko curled into a shell, and to drag him out of there was impossible. Peter is a great player in many respects, but as a defender he is, right now, undoubtedly, second to none. And here he had to do, what he knows how to do best! To be trailing in a match vs. Kasparov or Anand would be easier, then to try to even it up with Leko. He is almost bulletproof! I played quite well in the second part of the match, but could not get penetrate his defenses. Q: But still, you broke through the bulletproof Leko? In fact you did so in the very last game. He was too nervous. If he was calmer, he would capture your bishop on d3, and then perhaps you wouldn t be able to breakthrough A: I don t think that there is a draw there, it s a Yuri Vasiliev Translated by Ilya Krasik, originally of St Petersburg (Leningrad) Russia, now living in Boston, USA. Ilya is a former Massachusetts High School co-champion and junior high champion. His current USCF rating is 2100 and he plays in a club called Metrowest, which is the biggest chess club in New England (and looks like a really cool place). Ilya Krasik 86

86 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND game. But Leko became nervous much earlier. I would not say that the pressure in 14th game was greater than in 11th, 12th and 13th game. And Leko didn t lose because he was very nervous in the final game. It s just that the direction of the match was going this way. I pressed in the last few games quite strongly, but every time he would by some miracle escape. But miracles must end at some point. And they ended. If this was a 16 game match, I would still win, if not in 14th game, in 15th or in 16th. The problem was that there were only 14 games. What if he escapes again and that s over Q: Before the last game you walked around Ascona with a beautiful girl. Was this typical for you or was this some sort of psychotherapy before the last game? A: After a ridiculous loss in game 8 and a few draws, I understood that my chance lies in completely calming down, not thinking about my result but just playing well. Seemingly, I was able to enter this state of mind: to come and to show everything I am capable of showing at the board. And in off days even more so What s the point of worrying. And at the point when you saw me, it would be a shame not to take a walk. The weather was too good Q: And your companion was also very nice She was in Ascona the whole time or only came at the end? A: Actually, towards the end of the match I got a visited by a lot of my friends, even though I didn t ask them to come. It seems like they felt that I needed help. And they helped me greatly! Vadim Repin, a famous violinist, came by for one day, with his wife, to tell me a few kind words of reassurance. Other people who are dear to me also came. This created a nice atmosphere. Q: Did you receive any calls from Moscow? A: Maybe they called but during the match I turn off my phones. WHAT NEXT? Q: Joel Lautier, president of ACP, emphasized during the press conference, and repeated during the closing ceremony, that your match against Leko was not at all some kind of a semifinal, but a real match for World Championship. And then continued his thoughts, saying that if FIDE will not agree to a dialogue with ACP, then ACP and as I understood, you as well, will go your separate way. Right? A: That s right. The match in Brissago was a match for the World Championship, not a qualifier to some kind of unification match. To which I was somehow signed up, without being asked, whether I want to play it or not. Q: But you have signed the Prague Agreement Not a single point of the document I have signed in Prague has been met by the other side. And therefore I consider myself completely free from any kind of obligations. I do not owe anything to anyone. I played a match for World Championship and defended my title. In general, I am positively inclined towards the idea of unification, but we need to discuss conditions under which this unification can take place. Q: On what conditions are you willing to play a unification match? A: Firstly, we need to keep in mind the lessons of Prague, Prague agreements turned out to be a fiction. At least from the standpoint of FIDE. And now I need to seriously think how to fine-tune a dialogue with FIDE, in order to be sure that everything we agree upon will be carried out. Because unification itself is absolutely senseless, if it does not carry some positive changes. If we will have one Champion, well-defined structure of World Championships, everything guaranteed then yes, this unification is imperative for the chess world. If none of this happens, then this unification will just be another fiction. Q: What kind of World Championship structure would suit you? A: A normal one. I think a curious idea was born in ACP: to organize a Grand Prix, at the end of the year to hold Masters, the winner gets a right to play in a World Championship match against the defending Champion. Q: And how often will this match take place? A: Once, every two years. But this is details. They can be discussed. If there was desire from the other side. I cannot consent to chaos, which presently reigns in the chess world. There is no reasonable system of qualification, Anand was sidelined, Ponomariov was thrown out. Most of the strong players were missing from the FIDE Championship, in Libya. It is obvious that FIDE at this moment has hit a dead end. And if they (FIDE) don t make the appropriate conclusions, then I do not see any basis for cooperation. WILL THE SUSPICIONS COME TRUE? Q: Ok, with whom will you play for the next match for World Championship? A: We have carried out one cycle, we will have another one. We will not have problems. But I want to work with people, with whom there is a trust and who share the general vision of the situation. My vision of the situation is as follows: chess need to be developed in civilized European countries, to have corporate sponsors, like Dannemann or Deutsche Bank (which carried out large chess action in Germany). There are good tournaments in Holland, in Spain. It would be advisable that chess develops in this direction. And many chess players are in solidarity with me on this. We must not depend on the wants of one individual, even if it were a good person. I want to see chess like golf, tennis. There, they will always have sponsors, always have tournaments. If FIDE doesn t want this, then I will not work with them, since I do not see any prospects in the direction which is chosen by them at this time. But I suspect that FIDE can change its position. Q: And what are these suspicions based on? A: Public opinion polls show that chess players are very unhappy with what s going on. And the 87

87 CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND numbers of those who are unhappy keep growing. More than 30 people from the ranks of leading chess players did not attend the FIDE World Championship this has never happened before! If FIDE fails to make timely conclusions, it will simply cease and decease as an organization. The chess players are not demanding much, they want a minimal amount of respect and a minimal amount of compliance to certain principles. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MATCHES ARE OF INTEREST TO THE WORLD Q: Lautier also says that if the unification match does takes place (in which I am personally not convinced at all) none of the leading players will take part in it. But in the past, they did participate. The same Anand, for example A: I don t see any point to changing that, which even from the commercial standpoint is working well. Matches for World Championship will always attract large attention in the world. And who finds it interesting, these FIDE knockout Championships? Ok, so they played. So Kasimdzhanov won, or somebody else so what? Q: By the way what do you think about the new FIDE World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov? A: It s hard to say something about him; I mean he won his matches on tie-brakes, so it was rapid chess. Rapid chess is just rapid chess. I heard a lot of good about Kasimdzhanov, but how he plays in classical chess, we don t know. Q: And judging by his games, what do you think? A: Unquestionably, a talented player. But his opening preparation is still a bit weak and he still hasn t proved that he belongs to the chess heavyweights. Q: And whom would you list as those heavyweights? A: Anand, Leko, Topalov, myself Q: You are not listing Kasparov? A: Well, that s obvious anyway. Great name! Although right now he is experiencing a string of misfortunes. I have no intention to wrong Garry Kimovich, but objectively he is not the strongest player right now. Q: In your opinion how will his match with Kasimdzhanov end? A: The problem is this. Kasimdzhanov, of course has earned the match against the great player Kasparov. But what s very unclear is for what reason will they be playing a World Championship match?! THE SIGNATURE WAS PLACED FOR SOMETHING ELSE Q: Vladimir, but didn t you place your signature under the very fact of such a match! A: Excuse me. I signed under the match Kasparov-Ponomariov. Plus, other points were supposed to be met, which were not met. I disagreed in Prague that a challenger for Ponomariov can be hand picked. But I felt other points were very important, and I was ready to sacrifice the principles of sport qualification for their sake. I was so inspired back then by the prospective revolution in the chess world! And what happened? Not one point was ever fulfilled. Anand was sidelined, Ponomariov was trampled and who will play, Kasparov vs. Kasimdzhanov. It s not their fault it s the quintessential of FIDE politics. Why should Kasparov, who hasn t won a single tournament this year, play in this match? Kasimdzhanov has of course done very well, but in public opinion of the chess world he is not a kind of GM whose achievements would be as noticeable as achievements of say Anand. Q: And still how do you think their match will end up? A: I don t know quite frankly, Kasimdzhanov is a dark horse. And Kasparov is in an obvious crisis. If he gets over this crisis, then he is an obvious favorite. If not, then I don t know, don t know One should not underestimate Kasimdzhanov. Q: But what is the solution that you are suggesting for FIDE to get out of the dead end situation you had described? A: For the sake of discussion (although I understand that it s not in the interest of several people) I believe that instead of Kasimdzhanov-Kasparov match we aught to hold a match tournament with the participation of Kasparov, Kasimdzhanov, Anand, and Ponomariov, and the winner will play a match against me. Q: I don t know if Kasimdzhanov will go for it, but one person who would definitely not is Kasparov! A: Why, he is a fighter. If we want to unify, then we need to resolve our old grudges. Anand, Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov and Kasparov as a legendary player. This would be an ideal solution to all conflicts. Q: I understood one thing from our conversation; a unification match will not take place. A: Why? If FIDE is ready to a civilized dialogue, then for my part I am also ready. Q: Will you play in the super final of Russia Championship in Moscow? A: Even though I doubt I can recuperate after such a grinding match in three weeks, I will play, in order to support the beginnings of new Russian Chess Federation president Alexander Zhukov and in general russian chess. I will have to live by the Olympic principle: the goal is not victory but participation. ChessBase 88