Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (Russian: ???????? ????????? ???????

; born 25 June
1975) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion
from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007. He
has won three team gold medals and three individual medals at Chess Olympiads.[2]

In October 2000, he defeated Garry Kasparov in a match played in London, and became
the Classical World Chess Champion. In late 2004, Kramnik successfully defended his
title against challenger Pter Lk in a drawn match played in Brissago,
Switzerland. In October 2006, Kramnik, the Classical World Champion, defeated
reigning FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov in a unification match, the World
Chess Championship 2006. As a result, Kramnik became the first undisputed World
Champion, holding both the FIDE and Classical titles, since Kasparov split from
FIDE in 1993. In 2007, Kramnik lost the title to Viswanathan Anand, who won the
World Chess Championship 2007 tournament ahead of Kramnik. He challenged Anand at
the World Chess Championship 2008 to regain his title, but lost.
Vladimir Kramnik was born in the town of Tuapse, on the shores of the Black Sea.
His father's birth name was Boris Sokolov, but he took his stepfather's surname
when his mother (Vladimir's grandmother) remarried.[3] As a child, Vladimir Kramnik
studied in the chess school established by Mikhail Botvinnik. His first notable
result in a major tournament was his gold medal win as first reserve for the
Russian team in the 1992 Chess Olympiad in Manila. His selection for the team
caused some controversy in Russia at the time, as he was only sixteen years old and
had not yet been awarded the grandmaster title or even the International Master
title, but was only a Fide master. However, his selection was supported by Garry
Kasparov.[4] He scored eight wins, one draw, and no losses, a performance of 2958,
which won a gold medal for best rating performance.

The following year, Kramnik played in the very strong tournament in Linares. He
finished fifth, beating the then world number three, Vassily Ivanchuk, along the
way. He followed this up with a string of good results, but had to wait until 1995
for his first major tournament win at normal time controls, when he won the strong
Dortmund tournament, finishing it unbeaten.

In 1995, Kramnik served as a second for Kasparov in the Classical World Chess
Championship 1995 match against challenger Viswanathan Anand. Kasparov won the
match 107.

In January 1996, Kramnik became the world number-one rated player; although having
the same FIDE rating as Kasparov (2775), Kramnik became number one by having played
more games during the rating period in question. This was the first time since
December 1985 that Kasparov was not world number one, and Kramnik's six month
stretch (January through June 1996) as world number one would be the only time from
January 1986 through March 2006 where Kasparov was not world number one. By
becoming number one, Kramnik became the youngest ever to reach world number one,
breaking Kasparov's record; this record would stand for 14 years until being broken
by Magnus Carlsen in January 2010.

Kramnik continued to produce good results, including winning at Dortmund (outright

or tied) ten times from 1995 to 2011. He is the second of only nine chess players
to have reached a rating of 2800 (the first being Kasparov).

During his reign as world champion, Kramnik never regained the world number-one
ranking, doing so only in January 2008 after he had lost the title to Viswanathan
Anand; as in 1996, Kramnik had the same FIDE rating as Anand (2799) but became
number one due to more games played within the rating period. Kramnik's 12 years
between world number-one rankings is the longest since the inception of the FIDE
ranking system in 1971 (disputed with Fischer "frozen" rating).Nonetheless, he has
remained a top player, and is the world No. 7 as of November 2017.