Kramnik v Leko, Brissago 2004, game 14: the must-win endgame

Péter Lékó led Vladimir Kramnik 7–6 going into the 14th and last game of their 2004 world championship match in Brissago, Switzerland. The champion keeps his title on a tied match, so Kramnik had to win; a draw would have made Lékó world champion. The game was played on 18 October 2004. Kramnik won, and it was only the third time a champion had saved his title by winning the final game, after Lasker against Schlechter in 1910 and Kasparov against Karpov in 1987.

Black to move after 24.b5. Taking the pawn was Black's best defence.

The whole game

Kramnik v Leko, World Championship 2004, game 14. Step through all 41 moves; Black resigned.

Lékó answered 1.e4 with the Caro-Kann Defence, and Kramnik chose the Advance Variation.

What Stockfish makes of it

We had Stockfish check every move.

16...Qxd2+: queens off in a must-win game

15.Bd4 Nxd4 16.cxd4 Qxd2+ 17.Kxd2: the queens come off.

Mark Weeks wrote that Kramnik surprised everyone by allowing the queen exchange, even though he needed to win. Stockfish rates the ending as better for White, by about two-thirds of a pawn. Wikipedia's list of famous games sums it up: needing only a draw, Lékó played too passively and paid the price.

22...Kd8 and 24...Nf4

22...Kd8 23.Ng5 Be8 24.b5 Nf4 25.b6!: White's pawn reaches b6.

22...Kd8 was a passive move; Stockfish prefers 22...Bxa4, taking a pawn. White's advantage grew to about one and a half pawns. Then 24...Nf4 was the real mistake: taking with 24...axb5 would have kept Black about one and a half pawns worse, but after 24...Nf4 White is about three pawns better. 25.b6 and 26.Kxd3 were each the only move that kept it.

The king walk and the mating net

34.f4 Ra2+ 35.Kf3 Ra3+ 36.Kg4 Rd3 37.f5 Rxd4+ 38.Kg5 exf5 39.Kf6 Rg4 40.Rc7 Rh4 41.Nf7+: Black resigned.

Kramnik's king walked up the board to f6, and with rook and knight it built a mating net around Black's king on d8. After 37...Rxd4+ Stockfish finds a forced mate. Lékó resigned after 41.Nf7+, with mate coming. Kramnik called Lékó a phenomenal defender who had challenged him more than Kasparov did in 2000.

How we checked

The moves: we found only one full published score, from German Wikipedia's page on the match; moves 33 to 41 are confirmed by chessworld.net, and moves 14 to 17 by Mark Weeks. 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 and the named opinions are from Wikipedia's page on the 2004 match, Mark Weeks, chessentials.com and taz (Kramnik's remark about Lékó).

Try it. Real positions, set at your level, every answer checked against the board. No account needed to start.

Start training