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Vladimir Kramnik vs Peter Leko
"The Caro Can't" (game of the day Nov-12-08)
Kramnik-Leko World Championship Match 2004  ·  Caro-Kann Defense: Advance. Tal Variation (B12)  ·  1-0


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Given 31 times; par: 77 [what's this?]

Annotations by Raymond Keene.      [402 more games annotated by Keene]

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Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 25 OF 25 ·  Later Kibitzing >
May-06-07   Grega: Today Krammy missed the same mate against Levon ... what happened to our champion?

:(

And I made a bet on him also, I could have wow 475 chessbucks!

Jul-06-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Ulhumbrus: 15...Nxd4? is a very serious positional mistake, which turns possible equality for Black into a winning positional advantage for Kramnik. It is not obvious that the move concedes so much more to White than it gains, although it deprives Qhite of the bishop pair. There are several reasons for this, and they all follow from Black having reason to follow the move 15..Nxd4? with the Queen exchange 16...Qxd2. This Queen exchange means that instead of being a target, White's King becomes a weapon. With the c3 pawn transferred to d4 and the White King safe, instead of having a possible Queen side attack or a possible King side attack, Black passes the initiative on both wings to White, who threatens to use both the c file and a King side pawn advance to attack Black. The right move is 15..0-0-0 with ..f6 to follow and Black may gain equality. Possibly one way of puting this is to say that the effect of 15..Nxd4? is to remove White's most important liability, an unsafe King. That makes the difference between equality and White having a winning positional advantage.
Jul-07-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Ulhumbrus: 15...Nxd4? is a very serious positional mistake, which turns possible equality for Black into a winning positional advantage for Kramnik. It is not obvious that the move concedes so much more to White than it gains, even though it deprives White of the bishop pair. There are several reasons for this, and they all follow from Black having reason to follow the move 15..Nxd4? with the Queen exchange 16...Qxd2. This Queen exchange has the result -amongst others - that instead of being a target, White's King becomes a weapon. With the c3 pawn transferred to d4 and the White King safe, Black, instead of having prospects for a Queen side attack or for a King side attack, has passed the initiative on both wings to White, who threatens now to use both the c file and a King side pawn advance to attack Black. The right move is 15..0-0-0 with ..f6 to follow after which Black may gain equality. Possibly one way of putting this is to say that the effect of 15..Nxd4? is to remove White's most serious liability, an unsafe King. The removal of this liability makes the difference between White having no more than equality and White having a winning positional advantage.
Aug-23-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Ulhumbrus: 16...Qxd2+? is a very serious positional mistake, which turns an advantage for Black into a possibly winning positional advantage for Kramnik.

The reasons for this follow from the exchange of Queens.

This Queen exchange has the result -amongst others - that instead of being a target, White's King becomes a weapon. With the c3 pawn transferred to d4 and the White King safe, Black, instead of having prospects for a Queen side attack or for a King side attack, has passed the initiative on both wings to White, who threatens now to use both the c file and a King side pawn advance to attack Black. The right move is 16..Qb6! with ..f6 or an attack upon d4 or both to follow, after which White seems unable to maintain even equality, in the face of Black's potential threats to attack along the f file by ...f6 as well as to attack the d4 pawn by the manoeuvre ..Ng6-e7-c6.

Possibly one way of putting this is to say that the effect of 15..Nxd4? is to remove White's most serious liability, an unsafe King. The removal of this liability makes the difference between Black having the advantage and White having a possibly winning positional advantage.

I would erase my last two messages on this page, were it not that it seems impossible to do so after a certain length of time has passed.

Sep-24-07   GrandPatzerSCL: I would have let Krammy play the checkmate (final game of World Championship Match).
Apr-17-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  positionalgenius: still one of the greatest games of all time.
Apr-17-08   NakoSonorense: I still can't believe Leko lost this game... He could've been the World Champion! So close yet so far...
Jul-16-08   The Rocket: When white plays 4 h4 in the caro-kann advance variation black should reply 4. h5, not h6, h6 should be played in the classical variation, strange that leko made this move.
Nov-12-08   Sularus: hmmm...

and i wonder if this used to be a GOTD named "All the Marbles"

Nov-12-08   Alphastar: <The Rocket> I can agree that 4. ..h5 is more in line with caro-kann principles but it is not regarded as superior to 4. ..h6.

In the variation 4. ..h5, black can keep his bishop on f5 but in return white has some initiative (after 5. c4) with a nice outpost on g5.

In the variation 4. ..h6 black has to retreat his bishop to within his pawn chain; on the other hand the question is whether the g4/h4 pawn duo provides extra space, or it is a weakening.

Nov-12-08   Method B: <cg.com>

Why changing the name of this game? I found "All the marbles" pretty good. It is strange to re-name it while there are so many great games in the database without a "title".

Nov-12-08   gtgloner: Love the pun for this GOTD, someone must have been up all night thinking of that!
Nov-12-08   yoozum: I haven't looked at this game since 2004 after the match, though I appreciate it much more now. Really a fantastic game.

My questions is why Kramnik didn't take blacks F pawn with his king in the last few moves? Is it because he wanted to keep the position closes so that Leko couldn't check him with his rook while he administered the final blow?

Nov-12-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  kevin86: Let'go my Leko!

Kramnik wins title again as he wins final game of match!

Mate will come soon as move 43.

Nov-12-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  A.G. Argent: <Archives - "Decisive King marches"> Even though it's a year and a half later, I thought I'd try. A great King march done by Fischer is in <Armando-Acevedo-Millan v Robert James Fischer, 1970>.
Nov-12-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  waustad: The big difference with this and the Petrosian v Botvinnik game people keep mentioning is that Botvinnik didn't have a bishop that spent much of the game as a tall pawn.
Nov-12-08   YoungEd: Great game! I like it when the GOTD has nice annotations like these, too.
Nov-12-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  OneArmedScissor: This is Kramnik's best game.
Nov-12-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  tatarch: What a brutal mating net-- its like a hospital scene where the injured black king gets smothered by a pillow.
Feb-12-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  freeman8201: Interesting Peter Leko decided to play the Caro-Kann for the last game. Maybe he wanted to avoid the Ruy Lopez & Sicilian lines?
Feb-24-09   WhiteRook48: 4. h4! and 5. g4! are probably also classified as Morphy moves or Kasparov moves or so. Or Spassky moves.
Mar-19-09   alanelbaum: Archives, try Tal-Lisitsin 1956
Apr-08-09   WhiteRook48: crushing Leko totally
Apr-10-09   atahualpa yupanqui: according to chessmaster

Chessmaster comment on move

37:Rxd4+

Black moves into a forced mate.Rxd4+ leads to 38.Kg5 exf5 39.Kf6 Rg4 40.Rc7 Bd7 41.Nxb7+ Ke8 42.Nd6+ Kf8 43.b7 Rg6+ 44.Kxg6 Ke7 45.Nxf5+ Ke6 46.b8=Q d4 47.Rc5 Be8+ 48.Qxe8# and mate.

Jul-28-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  LIFE Master AJ: http://www.ajschess.com/lifemastera...

My annotations of this game. (Note that the site has moved, ALL Geo-Cities sites will be closing - permanently - by the end of the summer.)

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