Master Class Volume 11: Vladimir Kramnik

For Garry Kasparov, it was clear early on who his successor as world chess champion would be: none other than Vladimir Kramnik! In 1992, Kasparov brought the 17-year-old into the Russian national team and he justified the early call-up with eight wins and one draw at the Chess Olympiad in Manila. Eight years later, Kramnik actually defeated his mentor in the world championship match in London and became the 14th world chess champion. Thanks to Kramnik, the division of the world chess championships that had existed since 1993 was ended. Kramnik defended his title against Peter Leko in 2004 and defeated Veselin Topalov in the unification match in 2006. In 2007, Kramnik lost the title at the world championship tournament in Mexico to Viswanathan Anand and was defeated by the Indian in a rematch in 2008. Even after losing the world championship title, Vladimir Kramnik remained among the absolute world elite - to this day. With his deep understanding of chess, Vladimir Kramnik is considered one of the greatest strategists in chess history. With his virtuoso technique, he has won countless games in the endgame. Kramnik is also one of the leading players in the field of opening theory. In addition to many other contributions, he has played a key role in shaping the theory of the Berlin Defense in the Spanish Game and the theory of the Catalan Opening with many original ideas. With this DVD, you can learn, using the example of one of the best players in chess history and the explanations of the authors (Yannick Pelletier, Mihail Marin, Karsten Müller and Oliver Reeh), how to play games strategically successfully, put your opponent under constant pressure and lead endgames to a technically sound win. Using Vladimir Kramnik's games, you can also trace the history and development of numerous popular openings and thus gain a much better understanding of their ideas.