Kramnik wins with short margin

Vladimir Kramnik - Peter Leko 4.5-3.5

Vladimir Kramnik

Both games on the final day have ended in draw, thus Vladimir Kramnik won the match 4.5-3.5. In the seventh game Leko didn't want to repeat QID, and offered Kramnik to enter his favorite Catalan opening. Small surprise, but Kramnik went into a rare Semi-Slav line. Obviously both players were familiar with the earlier games as they forced exactly the same draw as in Bacrot-Gurevich and Dautov-Khenkin played on 1999.

8th game saw another Ruy Lopez with early d3, only this time Kramnik opted for more active placement of dark-squared Bishop. 10. d4 was interesting solution by Leko, he basically entered popular Archangelsk variation with tempo down. This tempo meant pawn on h6 instead of h7, which is not really benefiting White, he lost the option of playing Bg5. Anyway, e3 is best place for the Bishop and probably Leko was hoping that Kramnik is not familiar with all the traps in this tricky line. Nevertheless, Kramnik easily equalized with the typical Bg4 and d5. Leko tried last "trick" with Nb5 but Kramnik was cool to give away the exchange and get excellent pieces play. Black was standing better at the moment when draw was agreed.

Games 1-6 report