Raymond Keene

Kramnik’s Immortal

issue 24 March 2018

Every so often a game is played which is worthy of joining the immortals in the pantheon of chessboard masterpieces. Anderssen v. Kieseritsky, London 1851, Zukertort v. Blackburne, London 1883, Botvinnik v. Capablanca, AVRO 1938; these are the jewels to which every chess player aspires. As Marcel Duchamp once observed: ‘not all artists are chess players, but all chess players are artists’.

The former world champion Vladimir Kramnik played such a game against Levon Aronian, one of the pre-tournament favourites in the Berlin Candidates to determine the challenger...

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