World Chess Championship Kramnik-Leko Brissago 2004.pdf

KRAMNIK-LEKO

BRISSAGO 2004

CENTRO DANNEMANN

WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

KRAMNIK-LEKO

BRISSAGO 2004

CENTRO DANNEMANN

WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

DIRECTED BY

P IERRE R UIZ -V IDAL

DOCUMENTATION , ARCHIVES

L AURENT T INTURE

PRODUCED WITH DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED BY

CHESSBASE, F RIEDRICH F RIEDEL

CENTRO DANNEMANN BRISSAGO, J ACOB A AGAARD , R AINER K NAAK , J OERG W EGERLE

CHESS TODAY, V LADIMIR B ARSKY , M IKHAIL G OLUBEV , M AXIM N OTKIN , N IKOLAI V LASSOV , A LEX B ABURIN

THE WEEK IN CHESS, J AMES C OLEMAN , M ARK C ROWTHER , M ALCOLM P EIN

SPORT-EXPRESS, Y URI V ASILIEV , S ERGEI S HIPOV

CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND

THE FIRST STEP

HAMBOURG, GERMANY

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

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.

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 2004.

T he press invitation, started off with the

CENTRO DANNEMANN / BRISSAGO / SWITZERLAND

JOEL LAUTIER ’ S ADDRESS

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.*

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

MAY 12, 2004

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

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