Vladimir Kramnik: An outstanding career
Garry Kasparov knows chess talent when he sees it and he was one of the strongest supporters of the young Kramnik. It was Kasparov who insisted on letting the 17-year old Kramnik play in the Russian National Team at the Chess Olympiad in Manila 1992 – though Russia had many strong and experienced grandmasters and Kramnik at that time was not even an International Master. But Kramnik did not disappoint: with a result of 8½/9 he helped the Russian team to win gold and also won gold for the best results as first reserve.
Eight years later Kramnik was World Champion. In 2000 he won the World Championship match against his former supporter Garry Kasparov in London to become the 14. World Champion in history of chess, and the first and only human player who managed to beat Kasparov in match.
However, Kramnik's perhaps most spectacular win against Kasparov was played four years before their match, at the tournament in Dos Hermanas 1996.
It was thanks to Kramnik that the split between world championships which had begun in 1993 was brought to an end. Kramnik defended his title in 2004 against Peter Leko and in the reunification match in 2006 he defeated Veselin Topalov. In 2007 Kramnik lost the title to Viswanathan Anand at the world championship tournament in Mexico and was also defeated by the Indian in 2008 in the return match. Even after losing the title of world champion Vladimir Kramnik has continued to remain among the absolute elite of players in the world – till the present day.
He also continued to play spectacular games, e.g. the following win against Levon Aronian at the Candidates Tournament 2018 in Berlin.
With his deep understanding of chess Vladimir Kramnik is considered one of the greatest masters of strategy in the history of the game. His flawless technique has enabled him to bring to a successful conclusion innumerable encounters in the endgame. In the realm of opening theory too Kramnik is one of the leading players. In addition to many other contributions, he has decisively shaped the theory of the Berlin Defence to the Ruy Lopez and that of the Catalan Opening with many original ideas.
This DVD allows you to learn from the example of one of the best players in the history of chess and from the explanations of the authors (Yannick Pelletier, Mihail Marin, Karsten Müller and Oliver Reeh) how to successfully organise your games strategically, consequently how to keep your opponent permanently under pressure and how to bring your games to a successful conclusion with accurate technical endgame play. Through Vladimir Kramnik’s games it is possible, moreover, to follow the history and development of numerous popular openings and thus obtain a better understanding of the ideas behind them.
Master Class Vol.11: Vladimir Kramnik by Dr. Karsten Müller, Mihail Marin, Oliver Reeh, Yannick Pelletier
• Video running time: 9 h 36 min (English)
• All Kramnik’s games, and short biography
• Kramnik Powerbook: The opening repertoire of the 14th world champion as a variation tree
• Tactics training with 121 Kramnik games: 399 training questions, max. 835 points
• With ChessBase Reader 2017
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