My Path to the Top

Born in 1975 in Tuapse on the shores of the Black Sea, Vladimir Kramnik studied at the Botvinnik-Kasparov chess school. At 16 he was included in the Russian Olympiad team and scored a sensational 8.5/9, the best result at the Olympiad. After that followed a string of great tournament results, culminating in a world championship challenge. In 2000 Kramnik played the chess legend Garry Kasparov and beat him to take the title, which he successfully defended in 2004 against Peter Leko and 2006 against FIDE champion Veselin Topalov, whom he defeated to take the unified world championship title.

Video running time: 6 Hours.

On this DVD Vladimir Kramnik retraces his career from talented schoolboy to World Champion in 2006. With humour and charm he describes his first successes, what it meant to be part of the Russian Gold Medal team at the Olympiad, and how he undertook the Herculean task of beating his former mentor and teacher Garry Kasparov. Kramnik dissects his wins against Leko and Topalov, giving us a vivid impression of the super-dramatic final games of  the 2006 match. His commentary is full of useful advice and provides a fascinating insight  into the thought processes that govern top level play. 

The DVD contains more than six hours of video with narrative and game analysis. There are also five additional segments from an exclusive video interview on the intrigues that surrounded the 2006 world championship, and on the state of the chess world in general.

• Part 1 (no game) Childhood and development of his chess talent, 37:43
• Part 2 Olympiads Manila 1992, Kramnik – Nunn, (ol) Manila 1992, 26:45
• Part 3 Linares 1993 and 1994, the fi rst win against Kasparov: Kramnik – Kasparov, Linares 1994, 20:04
• Part 4 Chess in the 90s, game Kasparov – Kramnik, Dos Hermanas 1996, 16:46
• Part 5 Chess in the 90s: Kramnik – Karpov, Dortmund 1997, 8:21
• Part 6 Chess in the 90s: Kramnik – Kasparov, Novgorod 1997, 11:37
• Part 7 Chess in the 90s: Topalov – Kramnik, Linares 1997, 9:03
• Part 8 Preparation for the World Championship match against Kasparov in London 2000, 27:55
• Part 9 The Berlin Defence I, Kasparov – Kramnik, London 2000 (m/1), 20:34
• Part 10 The Berlin Defence II, Kasparov – Kramnik, (m/3 and m/9); London 2000, 29:31
• Part 11 Kramnik - Kasparov, London 2000 (m/2), 18:01
• Part 12 (no game) The World Championship match against Leko, Brissago 2004, 23:46
• Part 13 The decisive final game, Kramnik - Leko, Brissago 2004 (m/14), 34:34
• Part 14 (no game) Reunifi cation World Championship Match against Veselin Topalov, 9:53
• Part 15 (no game) Elista Match preparation II, 4:42
• Part 16 Topalov – Kramnik, Elista 2006 (m/2), 31:43
• Part 17 Kramnik – Topalov, Elista 2006 (m/12), 10:46
• Part 18 Decision by tie-break: Kramnik – Topalov, Elista 2006 (rapid 2) 14:30
• Part 19 Decision by tie-break: Kramnik – Topalov, Elista 2006 (rapid 4), 12:15
• Part 20 Looking forward to the World Championship tournament in Mexico, 2:04
• Exclusive Interview with Vladimir Kramnik (44 min) on the intrigues the intrigues surrounding the 2006 world championship, and the state of the chess world in general

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard.