[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: A Kramnik Interview: Now we know who his seconds are!

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
A Kramnik Interview: Now we know who his seconds are!
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1223682138.shtml


   You can [1]read the remaining details for yourself, but here's the
   most interesting bit: Vladimir Kramnik's seconds are [drum roll]:

   ([2]show)

   Sergey Rublevsky, Laurent Fressinet, and [second drum roll]:
   ([3]show)
   Peter Leko!
   This isn't the first time a world championship finalist has gone on to
   be a second - Tal was on Karpov's team in 1978 - but I'm pretty sure
   this is the first time the loser of a world championship went on to
   his second his conquerer (if one can call Kramnik's keeping his title
   on a 7-7 tie a conquest). Rather than attribute a kind of Stockholm
   Syndrome to Leko, let's chalk it up to mutual gentlemanliness. (That
   said, it's perhaps a little funny that Friedel next asked Kramnik
   about Bareev. Bareev wasn't particularly kind in his comments about
   Leko in From London to Elista, so Leko would have needed a strong
   stomach to work alongside him.)
   Now that we know, let's speculate about what this might mean in terms
   of repertoire.
   (1) Sergey Rublevsky (FIDE Rating: 2702):
   With White, he plays 1.e4 the overwhelming percentage of the time.
   Against 1...e5, which is Anand's usual but not exclusive first move,
   Rublevsky plays the Scotch. Against 1...c5, Rublevsky sometimes goes
   for Open Sicilians, but he has a couple of non-Open pet lines: 1.e4 c5
   2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ and 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4. Against the French and
   Caro-Kann, he plays 2.d4 followed by 3.Nd2.
   With Black, he meets 1.e4 with Kan/Paulsen/Taimanov Sicilians; against
   1.d4 he generally plays the QGA and the occasional Slav.
   (2) Laurent Fressinet (FIDE Rating: 2676):
   With White, he plays 1.e4 well over 80% of the time, 1.d4 most of the
   rest of the time. Against 1...e5, he plays the Ruy, but often (not
   always) avoids the main lines with the Exchange Variation or an early
   d3. In the Sicilian, he, like Rublevsky, sometimes plays 3.Bb5+, but
   often allows the Najdorf, against which he has played practically
   everything. Against the Dragon, he plays 9.O-O-O. Similarly, he goes
   for Open Sicilians against 2...e6, but prefers 3.Bb5 against 2...Nc6.
   Against the French, he prefers 3.Nc3 but also plays 3.e5, while he has
   met the Caro-Kann with 3.Nc3 and 3.e5.
   With Black, he plays both 1...e5 and 1...c5 on a regular basis, but
   has used other moves like 1...d5 with surprising frequency. With
   1...e5, he plays 2...Nc6 and generally heads for the Chigorin rather
   than the Marshall. His 1...c5 games are usually Najdorfs, but the
   unusual 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Qc7 is a regular visitor on his
   chessboard. Against 1.d4, he too goes down the Slav road, but more
   often it turns into a Semi-Slav and then goes back to the Cambridge
   Springs.
   (3) Peter Leko (FIDE Rating: 2747):
   With White, he overwhelmingly favors 1.e4, playing it around 95% of
   the time. He is a very principled player, and almost always goes
   straight into main lines: e.g. 6.Be3 vs. the Najdorf, allows the
   Marshall Gambit in the Ruy, 3.Nc3 vs. the French and Caro-Kann, etc.
   With Black, his play has shown more diversity. Against 1.e4, he plays
   both 1...e5 and 1...c5 on a regular basis. It has been a while since
   he has used it, but he was a regular exponent of the Sveshnikov
   Sicilian. On a few occasions in 2006 he played the Najdorf, and when
   he was a youngster he played the Classical Sicilian quite often (so
   did everyone else back then). His bread and butter these days is
   1...e5, however, and he'll play the Marshall Gambit if permitted.
   Against 1.d4 he'll play 1...Nf6, and after 2.c4 he has eschewed the
   Gruenfeld of his childhood for 2...e6 and a traditional, classical
   Nimzo/Queen's Indian repertoire.
   At first glance, this team seems a little odd. Kramnik specializes in
   1.d4 and 1.Nf3, yet all three of his seconds are rabid 1.e4 devotees.
   Kramnik plays the Petroff with Black, his seconds do not. It's really
   not as big a problem as it might seem, however, because while his team
   doesn't play the Petroff, all three of them have to face it on a
   regular basis. Likewise, while none of them play 1.d4 on a regular
   basis, their repertoires overlap with Anand's - he plays the Slav and
   the Nimzo/Queen's too. One gap is that none of the three seems to
   specialize in the Moscow Gambit of the Semi-Slav, so that might be an
   area where their work had to start from scratch. Also, while it's
   relatively unlikely that Kramnik will play 1.e4 or Anand 1.d4, Kramnik
   will be in good shape if that happens.
   Will it? We'll see in just four days!
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References

   1. http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4950
   2. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/chessmind/posts/1223682138.html
   3. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/chessmind/posts/1223682138.html
   4. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/chessmind/posts/1223682138.html
   5. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/chessmind/posts/1223682138.html