Vladimir Kramnik

## Background Information

Vladimir Kramnik is a former world chess champion and chess grandmaster from Russia. He held the title of world champion from 2000 to 2006, where he defeated then world champion Garry Kasparov. At the time, the title of world champion was separated and thus while Kramnik was classical world champion, FIDE set up their own matches. He has defended his world championship title against Veselin Topalov, he challenged for the title against Anand but lost the match. Kramnik has recently announced his retirement from the game and wishes to work on projects that related to chess. Such example includes the Micro-sense program where he worked with several Indian chess prodigies.

## Post-Retirement Years

After finishing on a poor performance in the Tata Steel Chess Masters 2019, Kramnik announced that he would be retiring from the game of chess however he stated that he would still come play a few exhibition based games and will continue to work on projects that are related to chess.

A few months afterwards, Kramnik was invited to play in the FIDE world chess Armageddon tournament which featured Karjakin, Nepomniatchi, Gelfand, Wei Yi and several others. Much to Kramnik's dismay in playing in the tournament, he nonetheless participated as a way to help promote the tournament and the event. In the first round, he eliminated the young Chinese Player Wei Yi winning both blitz games in their encounter. He then defeated Teimour Radjabov in Armageddon. He lost to Nepomniatchi with a score of 0.5 to 1.5. He also lost to Karjakin in their encounter with a score of 0.5 to 1.5, giving him an overall Third Place in the overall tournament standings.

* Wei yi vs Vladimir Kramnik (0-1) [Blitz Game 1 - Match 1]
* Vladimir Kramnik vs Wei Yi (1-0) [Blitz Game 2 - Match 1]
* Vladimir Kramnik vs Teimour Radjabov (1/2-1/2) [Blitz Game 1 - Match 2]
* Teimour Radjabov vs Vladimir Kramnik (1/2-1/2) [Blitz Game 2 - Match 2]
* Teimour Radjabov vs Vladimir Kramnik (1/2-1/2) [Armageddon - Match 2] (Kramnik wins)
* Vladimir Kramnik vs Ian Nepomniatchi (0-1) [Blitz Game 1 - Match 3]
* Ian Nepomniatchi vs Vladimir Kramnik (1/2-1/2) [Blitz Game 2 - Match 3]
* Vladimir Kramnik vs Sergey Karjakin (1/2-1/2) [Blitz Game 1 - Match 4]
* Sergey Karjakin vs Vladimir Kramnik (1-0) [Blitz Game 2 - Match 4]

In 2019, Kramnik was invited to the Levitov Chess private event which featured only rapid and blitz games. The tournament featured several chess names such as Giri, Anand, Svidler, Grischuk, Nepomniatchi, Gelfand and Bareev. Kramnik was tied for first place in the blitz portion of the event. He finished on a score of 5/7 scoring four wins, one loss and two draws.

* Vladimir Kramnik vs Peter Svidler (1-0) [Round 3]
* Boris Gelfand vs Vladimir Kramnik (0-1) [Round 4]
* Vladimir Kramnik vs Viswanathan Anand (1-0) [Round 5]
* Alexander Grischuk vs Vladimir Kramnik (1/2-1/2) [Round 6]
* Vladimir Kramnik vs Anish Giri (1-0) [Round 7]

## 2019 World Blitz Chess Championship:

Despite being retired, Kramnik decided to sharpen up his skills and brush off his rust by playing in the 2019 World Blitz Chess Championship. He won the Bronze Medal by achieving third place within the tournament, behind silver medalist Hikaru Nakamura and gold medalist Magnus Carlsen. He won 13 games, lost 4 games and drew 4.

* Vladimir Kramnik vs Alexander Donchenko (1-0) [Round 2]
* Manuel Petrosyan vs Vladimir Kramnik (0-1) [Round 13]
* Vladimir Kramnik vs Alireza Firouzja (1-0) [Round 20]