Vladimir Kramnik: My Path to the Top
The
history of chess world champions is one of famous personalities, who have each
influenced and advanced our sport in their own particular way. These superstars
have taken up chess, have later reached the top of the chess world and finally
the throne itself in what have often been very different fashions. Every chess
lover finds it rewarding and above all fascinating to study the personalities,
the lives and the great games of the world champions.
The reigning world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, describes on his new DVD in video
format his own way to the chess throne, starting from his childhood and the
first chess book to make its mark on him and going right up to the FIDE WCh match
against Topalov last year. He reports on how he graduated from the somewhat
provincial town of Tuapse on the shores of the Black Sea to the Botvinnik-Kasparov Chess School in Moscow and tells us about his first great
successes on the national and then the international stage. At the age of 16,
he was, at the insistence of Kasparov selected for the Russian team for the
Olympiads and in Manila 1992 he scored a sensational 8.5 points from 9 games and thus the best
result of the whole of these Olympiads.

In
the same year, Kramnik had his baptism of fire in the elite tournament Linares 1992. In one of the
strongest tournaments in the history of chess (with Kasparov, Karpov and almost
the whole of the then world chess elite) the17 year old Kramnik achieved with
+2 a superb result which definitively established him at the very top level.
Click here for replay of a
sample video on Linares 1992.
Other marvellous results followed and in 2000 came the legendary WCh match
against Garry Kasparov. Kramnik tells us in great detail how he prepared for
this great struggle and outlines his match strategy, which included as everyone
knows the ultra solid Berlin Defence. Kasparov was confronted with this
opening right from the very first game, which would be decisive for the outcome
of the match and for Kasparov’s loss of the WCh title. Kramnik analyses this
game in detail on the DVD, going into the ideas and concepts underlying the
opening and explaining why the Berlin Defence, quite apart from its objective
strengths, was exactly the right choice of opening against a player such as Kasparov.

Four
years after his victory over Kasparov, Kramnik would be playing the part of the
defender of the title in a match against Peter Leko. On this occasion, the
outlook from his point of view was totally different. Now what he had to do was
not to lose the match rather than to take the title by storm. On the DVD, Kramnik
focuses the key games in this second WCh match in his career, and admits that,
though his title defence was successful, right until the end he felt under
psychological pressure caused by the different match situation. With hindsight,
he concludes on the DVD that his match against Peter Leko was probably the more
difficult of his WCh matches to date.
Kramnik’s
third duel for the chess throne against Veselin Topalov in 2006 is, when one
gets down to it, probably the one which was of the greatest importance in the
history of chess. Elista finally saw the reunification of the world
championship titles brought to a successful conclusion under the aegis of FIDE.
On the DVD Kramnik concentrates on his preparations for the match and on the
most important games. He is convinced that the very high quality of chess seen
in the games has been overshadowed by the media hype about rumours and
accusations of cheating during the match. His DVD is to some extent a
contribution to according to the chess side of this duel the recognition and
consideration which it deserves.
If
you follow the various stages of Vladimir Kramnik’s chess career to date, you
will see a lot of chess and understand a lot more about the game. In addition
to that, the DVD offers an excellent opportunity to get to know the reigning
world champion as a person. This is the case because Kramnik speaks freely and
openly, with humour and charm, in an intelligent and at times self-mocking
fashion about his successes, his emotions and his chess.

The
DVD contains more than six hours of video with exciting reports and game
analyses. And there is also a 44 minute interview about the intrigues during
the 2006 World Championship and the state of the world of chess in general. Video
running time: over 6 hrs (+ 44 min. bonus material).