From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vladimir Kramnik
,
[1]
born 25 June 1975, is a Russian
chess
grandmaster
. He was
Classical World Chess Champion
from 2000 to 2006, and undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007.
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
Peter Leko
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. As a result, Kramnik became the first undisputed World Champion, since
Garry Kasparov
split from FIDE in 1993.
In 2007, Kramnik lost the title to
Viswanathan Anand
, who won the World Chess Championship tournament (not a classical match between the two players) ahead of Kramnik. He played Anand at the World Chess Championship match 2008, but lost.
Kramnik has been diagnosed with an uncommon form of
arthritis
, called
ankylosing spondylitis
. It causes him great physical discomfort while playing. In January 2006, Kramnik announced that he would skip the Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee to seek out treatment for his arthritis.
[2]
He returned from treatment in June 2006, playing in the 37th
Chess Olympiad
. He scored a +4 result, earning the highest performance rating (2847) of the 1307 participating players.
On 30 December 2006 he married French journalist Marie-Laure Germon. He has a daughter named Daria who was born 28 December 2008.
[3]