Kramnik vs Leko

There have been 14 Chess World Champions be­tween the start of the first World Champion­ship match in New York 1886 and the latest in Brissago in Switzerland. That means 14 extraor­dinary personalities, heroes in the history of chess. Each of them has enriched the game in his own inimitable way and influenced the style of generations. They will all be portrayed in this book, starting with Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Champion, and going all the way through to Vladimir Kramnik.

We shall meet child prodigies and scientists, artists and eccentrics - all men who devoted them­selves to chess passionately and sometimes obses­sively. We shall follow these exceptional thinkers

step by step down the paths of their sometimes ill-fated lives. Annotated games and brilliant com­binations will remind us of some of the most im­portant moments in their careers.

The second part of the book deals with the ex­citing autumn in Brissago 2004. All the World Championship games between World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and his challenger Pe­ter Leko are deeply analysed and thoroughly annotated by Grandmasters Artur Yu s upov and Christopher Lutz.

A portrait of the challenger Leko, inter­views and tables offer further information about the World Championships of today and yesterday.