Talk:Vladimir Kramnik

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However, the FIDE rating list is not an official determinant of status but rather a provisional or estimated ranking.

I don't think I understand this. The FIDE list is about as official as it gets, isn't it? If it isn't an indicator of who is world number two, then who is? --Camembert

The FIDE list is as official as those ESPN ratings of football teams. They may put Kramnik at number 2 but the fact is, the man is the world champion and is #1 until somebody beats him in a 35 game series.

Well, first of all, I think FIDE, which is after all the governing body for chess, is rather more oficial than ESPN. Granted, FIDE has its faults, but the Elo system is not one of them. Secondly, who says he has to be beaten in a 35 game series to not be world no. 1 any more? Kramnik - Kasparov was only a 16 game match, wasn't it, one of, if not the, shortest world championship matches ever. Thirdly, as it is the article says: "In the FIDE rating list for October 2002, Kramnik was ranked number two in the world, behind Kasparov." Why does this need qualification? OK, maybe there are other ways of ranking skill at playing chess, but this statement makes it clear that we're just dealing with the FIDE rating list. Why, after all, is a world championship match a better indication of who is world number one than an Elo list? Consequently, I've changed your statement somewhat. I hope it's OK for you.
By the way, related to this: does anybody know if Kramnik has finished above Kasparov in a tournament since his match win (I've been taking a bit of a break from chess for a while, so I'm not up to date on these things). --Camembert
I don't think it makes much sense to say that FIDE rankings need qualification. They're mathematically generated based on tournament performance. Isn't there an article on the Elo rating system somewhere? I think someone here is confused about what is meant by FIDE rankings. Kramnik is recognized as the world chess champion but he is not the highest rated player in the world. --Malathion 06:14, 28 May 2005 (UTC)


I don't think it's particularly informative to start out the article with a list of Kramnik's match losses. Clearly there are some chess fans out there who hate Kramnik because of his style and propensity for quick draws, but this is hardly suitable. It should at least be balanced by a listing of his many tournament successes. BTW, Kramnik won Linares 2004, in which I believe Kasparov participated.24.199.100.27 05:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


I restructured this listing, organizing the information into wiki categories. Much of the negative crap about Kramnik's losses, etc, has been either removed or organized into its proper context. Hopefully people can respect Wiki as a resource instead of a soapbox for their vitriolic opinions. Certainly my improvements can be further improved. A discussion about the Prague agreement and a sample game would be welcome additions. Danny Pi 06:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


All right. I moved the thing about Kramnik finishing last to a more appropriate place. I don't think it's sufficiently important to deserve a full paragraph much less conclude his biography, nor do I consider the phrasing particularly "neutral". Danny Pi 20:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Rejig

I started trying to iron out a few POV-looking kinks and add more information to the "controversy" section, but it was making the article so unbalanced structure-wise that I ended up basically retooling the whole article so that it has a bit more of a chronological narrative flow. It's still a *bit* of a mess, but I think it hangs together better and hopefully it's tidy enough to get rid of the cleanup tag... thoughts/comments? 81.104.164.2 11:13, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the amount of space dedicated to controversy is out of proportion. Kramnik is not a cult leader, paranormal fraud, or a leader of a Neo Nazi group. Anyway thanks for your efforts. Andries 11:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, nobody is suggesting anything like that... I just think it's important for an encyclopedia article about someone who claims to be a World Champion to explain why half the chess world doesn't see them as World Champion. The section before I got here was called "Controversy", so that was the only reason I kept that in; I tried to keep the actual text as NPOV as possible on such a contentious issue, perhaps you'd prefer to change it to "Confusion" or "Competing claims to title" or something similar? 81.104.164.2 11:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't consider this NPOV at all. I don't know who deleted the large part of the biography (which WAS NPOV), but that needs to come back. Furthermore, having added the original controversy section myself, I think it's not quite fair that any mention of controversy keeps getting deleted from the Topalov article by Topalov fanatics, while at this point the majority of Kramnik's article is about controversy. Additionally, several online polls indicate that a clear majority of chess fans considered Kramnik champion during the Leko match, and while less do now, it is still a clear majority. Then you lay most of the blame for the continued schism on Kramnik for not playing in San Luis and incorrectly state that both parties did not agree to a subsequent reunification match. Kramnik (in several interviews) indicated that he was very much willing to play under the auspices of FIDE. It was Topalov and solely Topalov that rejected the offer (ostensibly for financial reasons). I don't want to get into a revert war (like on the Topalov page). But I think the previous article was both more perspicuous and NPOV. Let's form consensus before revert. I'll wait a week for responses to talk this out.Danny Pi 07:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Accentuation

Please add the Russian accents to Kramnik's names.Chvsanchez 04:39, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kasparov defended title against Anand after the Short match

The article says that Kasparov's next title defense, after the Short match in 1993, was vs. Kramnik in 2000. In fact, he successfully defended his title against Anand in 1996. (Please correct.) -unsigned comment by 208.164.49.125

It was 1995, not 1996. New York, 1995 (the games were played in one of the upper floors of the World Trade Center). Total World Championship matches played by Kasparov:

vs. Karpov (sitting Champ) 1984. Cancelled while Karpov leading vs. Karpov (sitting champ) 1985. Win by Kasparov (took title) vs. Karpov (rematch) 1986. Win by Kasparov (defended title) vs. Karpov 1987 (Karpov won candidates` cycle). Drawn match (Kasparov retained title) vs. Karpov 1990 (Karpov won candidates` cycle). Win by Kasparov (defended title) vs. Short 1993 (Short won candidates` cycle). Win by Kasparov (defended title) vs. Anand 1995. Win by Kasparov (defended title) vs. Kramnik 2000. Win by Kramnik (took title)

Kramnik has played two World Championship matches thus far, both below the traditional durations considered by many traditionalists to be a "good" number of games:

vs. Kasparov in 2000. Win by Kramnik (took title) vs. Léko in 2004. Drawn (Kramnik retained title)

The future of the world title and its holder, Kramnik, is in doubt. Supposedly, he will play Topalov in September. Topalov won a supertournament in 2005 (something traditionalists do not accept as a valid way to determine World Champion, when a sitting champion is alive and willing to play a match).

[edit] Kramnik's playing strength

Kramnik is the only person other than J.R.Capablanca (in 1921) to beat a World Champion in a match while not losing a single same. That's only two players in over 100 years of world championship matches.

Kramnik has dominated the supertournament Dortmund and was rarely below 2nd-3rd (i.e. just behind Kasparov or Anand) in any tournament for a decade. Kramnik went nearly 2 years without losing a single game, while playing in all the supertournaments and against the top players in the world (Karpov, Kasparov, Anand, etc.) He was only the second person to break 2800 elo barrier (Kasparov was the first) and was the only other 2800+ player for years.

Whether or not people like his style of play, the man is an undefeated World Champion who has played some of the best chess in the world for many years. His chess activity decreased because it became physically painful for him to sit for hours at a time, several days in a row, for tournament play. I know arthritis might sound like its 'no big deal' but Kramnik has stated that his back begans feel like its "on fire" after a few hours of sitting and you'll find many games where Kramnik has a large advantage but then blunders in the late-middlegame or endgame (something that never used to happen). The game is then lost and Kramnik's rating goes down. Its clear that the pain was too distracting in the later stages of the game and obviously world class chess takes full concentration the entire game. His colleague (and world #4) Svidler said that Kramnik was still the best technical chess player in the world and if it weren't for Kramnik's physical problems he would be sitting atop the chess world.

Many players (including Kasparov) have acknowledged that Kramnik is the best player of his generation, yet this article seems mostly about controversy which the man doesn't initiate and his failings rather than his incredible talent, his good nature, and his many successes. It is fairly rare that a kind, soft-spoken gentleman (whom no one attacks on a personal level or accuses of cheating, etc.) represents the highest level of play. Perhaps if he had the personality of a Korchnoi, Fischer, or Kasparov then people would pay more attention. With Kramnik, its just about chess.

It should be remarked that Kramnik just finished the 2006 Chess Olympiad in Turin, where he had the best score of any player on first board with a 2847 (!) performance rating. Please spend a little more time discussing his abilites and less time discussing chess politics. Politics is interesting but I feel it belongs under "FIDE" or "Chess World Championship matches" and not Kramnik's personal bio. Certainly not to the lop-sided degree to which it is represented now.

By the way, tournament results, world championship matches, and FIDE ratings are not simply my POV, so lets not claim its impossible to discuss his many successes with a NPOV.


Agreed. I have included Olympiad info and deleted the politics stuff. I was reluctant to delete it because I wanted to be fair to the opposing viewpoint. So I created a controversy section to at least keep it contained. Unfortunately, that ballooned to a ridiculous length, and someone even created a "Further controversy" section to elaborate further. I have simply deleted all that garbage, since it is simply unfair to have it strewn about here without including any of that information on Topalov's page as well. Danny Pi 21:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
While I agree with the sentiments behind the edits, I think it's now gone too far the other way. Kramnik's title has been controversial because he has never been rated world #1 while champion, and around 2001 he was completely overshadowed by Kasparov scoring a string of tournament victories; and then in 2005 overshadowed by Topalov being both FIDE champion and #1 in rating, so even Kasparov regarded Topalov as the true champion. So I think a succinct paragraph on the controversy is required. Rocksong 02:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Rocksong makes an interesting point about being rated #1, but I would argue that there have been several World Champions who would not have had the #1 rating (if there was elo then) for the majority of their tenure. Most Champions would, but there are some who were much stronger in match play than in tournaments (Tigran Petrosian is a perfect example; Smyslov is another and clearly Max Euwe would certainly not have been #1 in 1935). Yet no one considers their titles "controversial" because of this fact. Why? Because FIDE itself was stronger.

The highest ranking player and the world champion are two seperate titles. In almost any sport a team might barely qualify for the postseason and yet win the Championship. It happens every year in many, many sports. But no one would say "Well, sure the Marlins won the World Series but the Yankees had the best record during the regular season and are therefore the real Champions." If a tennis player was seeded #6 but wins Wimbleton, does it mean they're not really the champion because other people are ranked higher? Does the winner of the FIFA World Cup need to prove anything else after they win? There must be countless examples of Champions who "rise to the occasion" when it matters most, but don't perform at the highest level at every event. Are they not still Champions?

Also, there have been several players who would have been #1 for quite some time, but never had claims to World Champion (Maroczy, Keres, Pillsbury, etc.) Being the highest rated player that year (or for several years) doesn't make you the champion. The title is not just about playing strength. Seriously, why isn't Euwe's title "controversial" but Kramnik's is? The legitamacy must come from the institution and not the person. When the title itself is called into question than no one will be free from controversy. When no one doubts that the winner of the NCAA basketball championship is the real champion,regardless of their season's record, then no team needs to worry about legitimacy.

In conclusion, if the FIDE Championship itself was less controversial then Kramnik's title would, obviously, be less controversial. All of these claims appear to ultimately stem from FIDE's problem to ensure a clear champion. Other World Champions have not always been #1 in the world (perhaps not even top 5) and yet all they needed to do was win the Championship match to rightfully claim the crown.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that Kasparov would have been FIDE Champion in 2000 if he hadn't have walked away. We can obviously all agree that Kramnik beat Kasparov in a title match and no one has beaten Kramnik in such a match since. Frankly, I don't see the need to discuss Kramnik's legitimacy to the title so much. Again, tournament results and World Championship matches are two seperate events. However, 'a succinct paragraph' on the controversy might be an agreeable middleground (though certainly not a requirement). I personally think its odd that all the politics, the schism, and the controversy simply must live on Kramnik's bio and not Kasparov's (didn't he start it all?), or FIDE's, or in seperate articles. Come to think of it, why isn't the World_Chess_Championship article enough? Do we need to discuss all this again in anyone's bio? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.122.0.106 (talk • contribs).

Well put, but who wrote this? Sign please.Danny Pi 21:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kramnik-Kasparov 2000

The article seems to suggest that Kramnik's Berlin Defense was the major reason he won the match, and as Kramnik "although pressed hard..repeated managed to avoid defeat." It seems strange to call winning two games simply avoiding defeat. Surely winning a game is more than simply not-losing?

The Berlin defense was solid and Kramnik managed to hold the draw in all his games. However, Kramnik freely admits that Kasparov had the better positions in the Berlin games. The strategy was to hold "inferior positions that I knew I could hold". This style of defense is extremely difficult and rather courageous when one is playing against one of the best (if not THE best) attacking players of all time. Several commenters compared it to Ali's "rope-a-dope" against George Foreman in 1974. Kramnik himself said this was a perfect analogy in a post-match interview.

Kramnik's score as White was (+2 -0 =5) and he was rarely much worse. As Black, he was (+0 -0 =8) and was rarely better. Certainly the Berlin played a key role in 'not losing' the match, but Kramnik's excellent opening preperation (particularly of the White side of Grunfeld and the Nimzo-Indian) was the key reason he actually won the match (i.e. a challenger cannot just tie a match and share the title, they must win more games and Kramnik only won as white).

I think the article makes it sound like Kramnik barely stayed alive and simply "managed to avoid defeat". Certainly he did more than just not lose. In particular, the Berlin was successful but it was pure defense. It could not be the sole reason Kramnik won the match.

Kramnik's better preparation throughout the match in several opening systems was the main reason Kasparov himself gave for losing the match. He said it was the first time he had been "out-prepared" in his career.

[edit] "their past games clearly relevant in this context"

I disagree with that statement. If their past games were relevant, then why is it that they've finally decided to go through with the reunification match when Kramnik finally agreed to do it under the auspices of FIDE? Dionyseus 22:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Two issues. (A) Topalov rejected Kramnik's offer due to insufficient funds [Link Here]. The problem came from Topalov's $1 million demand, not Kramnik's refusal to play under FIDE auspices. In fact, Kramnik was eager to play under FIDE auspices [Link Here]. (B) Relevance of past match-ups. There is wiki precedent for mentioning match-up stats: Federer and Nadal's articles both mention their relative scores [Nadal][Federer]. Furthermore, this information informs the reader on past performance. When gauging how a match will go, one has very little relevant information *other than* past matchups anyhow. I assume that Dionyseus does not question the factuality or objectivity of this statement. I think it is very difficult to establish that the information is irrelevant. Danny Pi 23:34, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
The first proposal was rejected because both camps were unable to overcome substantial differences of opinion. [1] Their historical match-up score would make more sense in the paragraph in which the reunification match was agreed on, rather than on the paragraph in which their first reunification proposal failed because it makes it seem as if the text is implying that their historical score is the reason why the proposal failed, which is simply not the case. Dionyseus 23:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I saw your link before. I have shown two links now establishing that Kramnik did not object to playing under FIDE auspices. The only sticking point for the first match failure was money. If you can show evidence to the contrary, please do so. It would be hard, however, to find something more solid than Kramnik's press statement, "The Kramnik side has never rejected a world championship match against Mr Topalov under FIDE auspices." As for the (B) issue, I think it's just fine to move it to the later paragraph about reunification. Danny Pi 23:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I go one step further and say put them in a new paragraph. (Along with more recent results, which favour Topalov). Past results are to do with predictions, and were irrelevant to negotiations. BTW I think the earlier rejected negotiations should be deleted altogether, or only mentioned in passing (e.g. "After earlier unsuccessful negotiations...") because they're irrelevant now. Rocksong 23:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Rocksong. Dionyseus 23:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Partially agree. In their past four decisive games, Kramnik won 2 and Topalov won 2. This is the case whether you count rapid games or not. Does not favor Topalov, but am amenable to including this info. Rejected negotiations are relevant- and Fischer's article has a paragraph on negotiations prior to his match with Spassky. Wiki is an encyclopedia, not a news source. It should include history as well as news. Danny Pi 00:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
OK, rejected negotiations can stay in. It's already quite short, so I'm not fussed. As for recent results (from chessgames.com, Kramnik's POV): 2004 Corus: =1; 2004 Linares: +1=1; 2005 Corus: -1; 2005 Sofia/MTel: =1-1; 2005 Dortmund: +1; so yeah, that's even. Rocksong 00:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
BTW I've just noticed the +19-9=33 (now +19-9=34) is from, or at least agrees with, chessgames.com. That includes rapid and even blindfold games. IMHO that's ridiculous (and/or lazy research). Someone needs to go through the list and include only classical time control games. Maybe I'll do that later if I find some time.Rocksong 00:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I've done a quick count and it looks like +14 -6 =? for Kramnik, which is actually a more impressive ratio (for Krammy). Hard to determine time controls for some of those games, though. There may be a few more in there. Since the tiebreaks will be rapid games, I'm not sure we should necessarily bother trying to figure out which were classical time controls, although perhaps the blindfold games really are misleading. Also, pending evidence to the contrary, I'm going to RV the paragraph about "substantial differences" to Topalov's monetary demands, unless I hear objections.Danny Pi 01:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

A better idea (IMHO). Since there already are pages for World Chess Championship 1972, FIDE World Chess Championship 2004, FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 and I've recently added Classical World Chess Championship 2000, why not create FIDE World Chess Championship, 2006 and put the details there? This would save the need to duplicate details on Kramnik's and Topalov's pages. Then we can have whole separate sections on "Negotiations" and "Predictions" if we want. Rocksong 02:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting idea. Chessgames.com did a similar thing to cut down on the heavy (and repetitive) traffic on the Kramnik and Topalov forums. I don't know if your proposal is quite consistent with Wiki protocol, however. I'm not saying it's not- I'm just not sure that it is, since the event hasn't happened yet. In any case, I think these things should still at least be *mentioned* (perhaps with link to FIDE World Chess Championship 2006 in place of details) on the players' respective pages.Danny Pi 00:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I think there's plenty of Wikipedia precedent for pages existing before events begin, e.g. FIFA Women's World Cup 2007. The only problem I see is, given FIDE's recent record, it's possible that the match won't happen. But I think it's pretty unlikely that the match will fall through, so I say do it now. I agree it is appropriate to mention these things then point to the match page for more details. Rocksong 01:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Seems fair. I do think this could lead to further disputes about how much to include on player pages and how much should be left to the link. But in theory we both agree that the highlights should be mentioned on player pages, details mentioned on "FIDE World Chess Championship 2006" page, so I say we could tentatively make the change. Let's just work slowly and stepwise so this is all done with consensus. I don't like seeing sudden massive unilateral edits, which clearly won't gain consensus popping up, which has been the case lately- not referring to you, Rocksong.Danny Pi 20:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brains in Bahrain

Quote: Kramnik started well, taking a 3 - 1 lead after four games. However, in game five, Kramnik made what has been described as the worst blunder of his career, losing a knight in a position which was probably drawn. He quickly resigned. - My note: Kramnik has described this as a sacrifice.

No, it was a blunder alright. Play through the game here: http://www.chessbase.com/images2/2002/bahrain/games/bahrain5.htm . The deliberate sacrifice was in game 6 http://www.chessbase.com/images2/2002/bahrain/games/bahrain6.htm . Rocksong 04:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page for Reunification match

As flagged a while ago, I've created the page FIDE World Chess Championship 2006, so match details can go there as they unfold. Rocksong 01:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnicity?

Can someone please establish if Kramnik is Jewish, half-Jewish, ethnic Russian, half Russian or whatever?... I'm not sure I wouldn't support a rule expunging references to ethnicity/religion of chess players, celebs, athletes, etc.,. But until that happens it's inconsistent to leave the question unanswered in Kramnik's case. JDG 23:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Im not sure, but I think he is of east-slavic ethnicity. I remember reading somwhere that one of is grand parents was ukrainian.

I don't know or care his ethnicity. If someone knows it, then sure, put it in. But I'm not going to go researching it. And I don't have a problem with this being inconsist with other articles which do mention ethnicity. Rocksong 02:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] World championship matches

There are several matches listed in this section which are obviously NOT World Championship matches. They were qualifying matches similar to the candidates matches of old and clearly belong in a seperate section. Perhaps the section should simply be titled "Match History".

Anyway, players like Geller and Larsen took part in many qualifying matches but no one thinks either of them has ever been in a World Championship match. Let's not start putting qualifying matches on the same scale as the Championship matches. As far as I'm concerned, and I think most people would agree, Kramnik has only played three Championship matches: in 2000, 2004, and 2006. In fact, his three-time Championship record puts him in very exclusive company. Please don't include qualifying blitz matches in the same category as title matches.

I've renamed the section to "World championship matches and qualifiers", which I think is accurate. Rocksong 07:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] King of Dortmund

I think it might be worth mentioning that Kramnik was often referred to as the 'King of Dortmund' thanks to his tremendous results in the annual super-tournament. From 1995-2001 he took the title six times in seven years (and won it again in 2006). He has been quoted (several times) as saying this tournament was special to him and he often gave it more attention and effort than his other tournaments (i.e. he tries just a little bit harder to get first place in Dortmund).

[edit] Computer world championships

I don't know how to talk about reaction to Kramnik's recent defeat to a computer without using weasel words or engaging in original research. There was some of both in this article, which I have just removed. A lot of chess players feel humans still have an edge over computers, especially in correspondence games. I personally feel the writing is on the wall, and that computers can now play chess better than humans. But, as a Wikipedia editor, I try to not let my opinion affect the articles I edit. Samboy 10:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Was his peak rating 2809 or 2811?

The FIDE site contradicts itself: 2809, 2811... Which one is correct? Skarioffszky 13:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

What is in dispute is Jan and Apr 2002: one link gives 2809 for that time, the other gives 2811. Looking to The Week in Chess reports at the time as a tie-breaker, Kramnik was 2809 in Jan 2002 according to TWIC 374, and also 2809 in April 2002 according to TWIC 388. So it looks like the 2809 figure is correct, unless FIDE retrospectively changed the ratings. Rocksong 22:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
You are probably right. Skarioffszky 12:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
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