Kramnik beats Leko by a small margin

The last few days a rapid match of eight games was played between Peter Leko and Vladimir Kramnik, in the Hungarian town of Miskolc. Two years ago Leko had played 4-4 there against Adams and last year he beat with 4,5-3-5. This year the score board saw the same result in favour of Kramnik: 3,5-4,5.

The first game was nothing special. In the second game Leko probably missed a win (41.Qa8+ Kf7 42.Qa7+ Kf8 43.Re1 was very strong) and perhaps this influenced his play in the third game where he blundered (with 29...Rfe8). Kramnik didn't profit immediately (32.Rc2 Qe1+ 33.Kg2 Qe6 34.Qb5 was the way) but after another mistake by Leko (33...Qd3) he grabbed the first full point. The world champion could immediately have scored 1-3 but in the fourth game he missed the win (that starts with 38...Bc3!). In game five Kramnik applied a nice, new idea in his favourite ending (18.Ke1) and he won in his typical style. Luckily for Leko he could play a role in the match, by tricking Kramnik in game six. In the penultimate game Leko easily levelled the position with Black when the position was soon drawn. The last game looks like Kramnik home preparation to me, where Leko couldn't get an advantage with White. (The analytical notes are based upon the the analysis of the Hungarian GM Ferenc Berkes at Chessbase.)

The games:



Many good pictures can be found on the official website.