Nope. It's Peter Leko! In the 2004 classical world championship he went with a 7-6 lead into the last 14th game, needing only a draw to become classical world champion. Unfortunately for Leko, Kramnik won the last game to tie the match and keeping the title as a reigning champion. You can't come any closer to being a world champion than that

By the way, Leko and me were born in the same country (which doesn't exist anymore).


Name both players.




Who is this?

Do you need hints?

1st picture

The match was played a long time ago Ok, seriously now. The history books say that it was a world championship match, but there are some doubts if the title was really on stake. It was the first world championship match (if it was one) that was tied, thus the reigning champion kept the title. Besides doubts if the title was or wasn't on stake, there are also uncertainties about the exact match conditions.



2nd picture

He was in top 100 in the rating list before he turned 15 (a record that still stands). He is also the youngest person (at age 15) to defeat the number 1 rated player (and he did it with the black pieces). This game brought him instant fame. In the same year he defeated two other former world champions, also with the black pieces. He comes from the same town as some other famous player.

No, just extremely busy...

I'm still without an answer for the first photo. As you said, it was a long time ago, and I wasn't there...

The second photo: Teimour Radjabov. I remember reading that his 2003 defeat of Kasparov at Linares was considered the "most beautiful game" of the tournament... and that Kasparov lost his temper about the decision.

Yes, it's Radjabov. He comes from Baku (as Kasparov) and the win against Kasparov in Linares 2003 made him famous. It was voted as the most beatiful game, but Kasparov argued that it was only because HE got defeated by a 15 year old, otherwise it wouldn't have received that much attention. In same year he defeated (former FIDE champion) Anand and (the reigning FIDE champion) Ponomariov. Both with black pieces. He is the youngest person to be in the top 100 on the rating list (14 years 9 months). This record was later equalised by Karjakin.



Well, I made a mistake with hints about the first picture It was without a doubt a world championship match.

It's Emanuel Lasker (right) vs. Carl Schlechter (left) world championship match played in 1910. I have mistaken it with Lasker-Janowski 1909 match, which was later mistakenly considered as the world championship match.

However it is true that the exact match conditions are unknown. It's known that it was a best of 10 match, but nobody knows for sure if there was the infamous 2 point clause or not.

Schlechter has gone into the final game with a point lead, achieved a complicated (winning) position, which it could have drawn easely. Instead he made wild (uncharacteristic for him) winning attempts, finally losing his way in the complications and ended up losing the game. So the final score was 5-5 and Lasker keeping the title.

Some said that Schlechter just didn't see the draw, others have said that Schlechter was just being chivalrous and could not allow his rather accidental victory in the fifth game of the match to decide the outcome of the world's championship. But this is all probably a myth. It is known that Lasker had driven an exceedingly hard bargain before he agreed to play a match with Schlechter. Probably Schlechter had to win the match by two full games in order to become world champion. Winning by one game would have allowed Lasker to retain the title. If this was the case then Schlechter was not being chivalrous in going all out for a win, he was doing his best to win because only a second victory could have secured him the title.

There is no proof (in favour or against) if the 2 point clause existed or not, but evidence of Schlechter's play in that final game, plus the difficulty of imagining Lasker risking his title in such a short match without some extra protection (he was known to be a very tough negotiater concearning WC matches) seems pretty telling. Not to mention the fact that negotiations for a Lasker-Capablanca match broke down the very next year over that same 2-point clause.

Remember when I said:

quote:

Originally posted by ebutaljib:
Fischer played many fischer-random chess games with the Polgar's while he lived in their summer house. They are unwilling to disclosure the results

Perhaps we will see some of those games (or not). As a respond to my question Susan said that she is still debating whether to publish them or not.

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2008/07/never-been-published-fr-games.html

Still I think we wont see them, at least for the time being.