Kramnik, Vladimir – Tkachiev, Vladislav

2788 2008 · White wins (resignation, time or agreement)

Trompowsky, 2008: Kramnik (2788) plays 2.Bg5 against Tkachiev (2664) and never slips — 100% of his moves rated good or better, against 79% for Black. Queens come off early (20...Qxc3+, 21.Qxc3), and after 33.Rxh7 Kxh7 the game boils down to a king-and-pawn ending. It was still level there: the evaluation stood at 0.0 when 37...a5 appeared, the missed chance that flipped everything, from 0.0 to −15.0 for Black. Kramnik answered 38.a4 and collected the queenside pawns one by one until 43.Kb7, 1-0. The takeaway: in a drawn pawn ending, one careless pawn move is enough to lose the whole game.