Kramnik and Leko draw third straight in championship chess match

[Jack Rabbit]

Champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Hungarian challenger Peter Leko drew the fourth game of their match for the world chess title today in the Swiss resort of Brissago. It was the third straight draw after Kramnik won the first game.

Today's draw was harder fought than the previous two, lasting 43 moves. Kramnik, playing White, had a extra Pawn in an endgame in which both players also had two Rooks on the board. However, Leko defended accurately and prevented Kramnik from making any progress toward exploiting his small material advantage.

Some commentators believe that Kramnik had a winning advantage until late in the game.

Kramnik leads the scheduled 14-game match 2.5-1.5. A victory counts as a full point and a draw half a point. The winner will be the first player to obtain 7.5 points, with Kramnik retaining the title in the event the match ends in a 7-7 tie.

The fifth game is scheduled for Saturday at 3 pm Swiss time (6 am PDT). Leko will play White.

Official match site
Some quality kibitzing (including some of my own) at chessgames.com.

[edbermac]

1. World Championship?!?! Where the hell is Kasparov??

Kramnik is pretty good but Peter Leko??? And only a 14 game match??!? This match is a joke...

:wtf:

[Jack Rabbit]

2. A few answers . . .

1. Kramnik became world champion by defeating Kasparov in a match held in London in 2000. That was a scheduled sixteen-game match. Kramnik won 2 games with no losses and 13 draws. Kasparov, although still active, has since curtailed his activity.

2. Peter Leko is one of the strongest players in the world, with a FIDE rating of about 2740. That's no joke. Kramnik's highest rating achieved is 2811 while Kasparov's is 2851. Leko won the right to play this match by winning a tournament held in Dortmund in 2002.

3. I agree that fourteen games is a bit short for a championship match. I also thought that sixteen was a little short, although some defend this number. The number set by FIDE after World War II was 24 games and was retained by Kasparov's PCA after it split from FIDE in the early nineties. The match between Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand (New York, 1995) was 20 games, also a suitable length IMHO.

4. If you want a joke, FIDE currently recognizes as world champion the winner of a knockout tournament. The winner of the last one, held in Tripoli earlier this year, is Rustam Kasimdzhanov, a young grandmaster from Uzbekistan. The elimination tournament is a fine format (it compels competitors to play for wins) and Kasimdzhanov an excellent player who is already ranked among the world's top grandmasters (FIDE rating of 2706), but to call the winner of this tournament world champion seems a tad pretentious.

As far as I am concerned, Vladimir Kramnik is the world chess champion by virtue of point number 1, above. Most are hoping for a "reunification" match between the winner of the Kramnik-Leko match and Kasimdzhanov, who would be a worthy opponent for either. I, too, would like to see such a reunification match.