Kasparov v Kramnik, 2000, game 3: the Berlin Wall

This game is famous not for a brilliant move but for an opening. In their world championship match in London in 2000, Vladimir Kramnik met Garry Kasparov's 1.e4 with the Berlin Defence of the Ruy Lopez, an old line that had fallen out of favour. The queens come off on move 8, and Black's king loses the right to castle, but Black's position is very hard to break. Kramnik played it in games 1, 3, 9 and 13 and drew all four; Kasparov never found a way through. Kramnik won the match 8½–6½ without losing a game and became world champion, and the Berlin became one of the most popular defences at the top level. This is game 3, played on 12 October 2000.

White to move after 8...Kxd8. The queens are off on move 8: the Berlin endgame.

The whole game

Kasparov v Kramnik, World Championship 2000, game 3. Step through all 53 moves; drawn.

What Stockfish makes of it

We had Stockfish check every move. It rates the opening as close to level, which is the Berlin's point.

Moves 32 to 34: chances on both sides

32.bxa4 Rxc4 33.Bd2 Rxa4 34.Rxh6 Rg8: Black is better, then lets White back in.

Reports of the game disagree on who had the chances. The Week in Chess wrote that Kasparov may have missed one; ChessBase wrote that Kasparov got into difficulties and escaped with a draw thanks to some luck. Stockfish sides with ChessBase. After 32.bxa4 Black was about a pawn better; 32.g3 would have kept the balance. Then Kramnik let it go: 34...Rxh6, exchanging rooks, would have kept Black more than a pawn better, and after 34...Rg8 the game was level again.

40.f7!: the only move

40.f7! Nxf2 41.Re8+ Kd7 42.Rxf8 Ke7 43.Rc8 Kxf7 44.Rxc7+: everything comes off, and the rook ending is drawn.

Just before the time control Kasparov found 40.f7, and Stockfish agrees it was the only move that held the balance: anything else would have left White about three pawns worse. Both players then found a run of only moves, 40...Nxf2, 41...Kd7, 42.Rxf8 and 43...Kxf7, and the pieces came off into a rook ending that was agreed drawn after 53...Ke5.

How we checked

The moves: we found only one full published score, on German Wikipedia's page on the 2000 World Championship; its length, result, date and opening agree with English Wikipedia and The Week in Chess. We replayed every move with python-chess: all are legal.
The engine: Stockfish 16.1 checked every move at depth 22, and the key moments again at depth 26. "A pawn better" is Stockfish's measure of the position, not a count of material.
The history: from English Wikipedia's page on the Classical World Chess Championship 2000, The Week in Chess and ChessBase.

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