Vladimir Kramnik

Vladimir Kramnik
Kramnik at the 2005 Corus chess tournament
Full name	Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik
Country	Russia
Born	(1975-06-25) 25 June 1975 (age 41) Tuapse, Krasnodar Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Title	Grandmaster
World Champion	2000–06 (Classical) 2006–07 (undisputed)
FIDE rating	2811 (March 2017)
Peak rating	2817 (October 2016)
Ranking	No. 4 (February 2017)
Peak ranking	No. 1 (January 1996)

Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (Russian: Влади́мир Бори́сович Кра́мник; 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.

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 Péter Lékó 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. Nonetheless, he has remained a world-class player, and is the current world number four.

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; his mother is Ukrainian. 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, but his selection was supported by Garry Kasparov. He scored eight wins, one draw, and no losses.