Review(s):

Peter Leko became one of the youngest Grandmasters in the chess history at he age of 14 and he started speaking about his intentions to become World Champion rather frankly. Later he was avoiding that particular topic in interviews with journalists since he had to deal with plenty of other serious problems in his life.
Leko did not like the concept that the Elo rating system might also be a criterion of his intellect! As for the field of chess - Leko simply wanted to become one of the best players and find his own way in chess as well as in life... He practises Yoga and leads a vegetarian way of life so that might explain his drawing too many chess games sometimes!? His excellent defensive skills are obviously hereditary. Geza Maroczy was a real legend of the Hungarian and world chess and he was a superior defender. He had a lot of consistent successes and proved to be a worthy contender for the World chess title, but failed to provide the necessary funds for the match with Lasker, though ...Peter Leko found it no less difficult to enssure sponsors for the tournament in memory of Geza Maroczy in Hungary. Leko tried hard to finance his life and chess career, but he managed to do that only in Germany. His friend and manager Karsten Henzel (Peter had known him for six years) dealt with the financial aspects while Leko enjoyed the opportunity to improve in the super-tournaments of the world elite players. These tournaments now are inconceivable without Leko's participation.
Leko won the tournament in Dortmund in 1999 (which used to be often won by Kramnik before) and that was universally accepted as routine (Meanwhile Karsten Henzel now happens to be Kramnik's manager as well as Leko's. He will be in a delicate situation during April and May 2003 ...!).
Leko was not very impressive in the World Championships until his superior win in the Dortmund Challengers tournament in 2002. He has always been too cautious as if forgetting that chess is most of all a game in which you have to fight till the very end. His tentativeness was obviously due to his style, but he managed to overcome it. His father-in-law and coach Arshak Petrosian gave him a helping hand. Leko's marriage proved to be extremely successful in many aspects though...
Peter Leko is not very fond of discussing the problems of the contemporary chess world in public, but shares the opinion that Internet is the future of chess.
The Hungarian chess school is proud with brilliant individuals: the Polgar sisters, Almasi...not to forget Portisch, Adorjan and Ribli before them. Everyone is outstanding, but the excellent human relations are dominant over the rivalry. All that might be due to the peculiar Hungarian mentality?!
Leko's opening preferences are more or less predictable. He plays 1. e2-e4 with White and invents a lot of novelties in the modern lines. He answers 1.e2-e4 with 1...c7-c5 Sicilian - the Cheliabinsk variation with Black. You should refrain from trying to prove him wrong! His opening preparation is just flawless and he is not afraid of anybody. Presently he is more than confident about himself and his chess strength.
Peter Leko is a Hungarian player but he is still a part of the international chess world. The match with Kramnik lies in the future and he has left behind now plenty of achievements as a true chess professional. He is very young but still insistent and strong-minded challenger to the world chess crown. Peter Leko's greatest victory is yet to come....

Alexander Khalifman, World Ex-Champion St. Petersburg, April 2003, Preface


THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD...

Time is running by so quickly and the world is changing overnight so we are less and less able to be deeply impressed by anything at all! Back in 1993 Leko became a GM at the age of 14 and the world media was prompt to announce 'Peter Leko: The World's Youngest Grandmaster'. Last year Sergey Karjakin from Ucraine became a Grandmaster being only 12 and the chess magazines noted this while the rest of the media remained indifferent. We all somehow got used to the idea that top level chess is becoming younger and younger. The 18 years old Ruslan Ponomariov is the world champion (according to the "official FIDE version"), while his coeval Alexander Grischuk played at the last Olympiad only on board 2 for the strongest team of Russia, just because Kasparov himself-was board one. Nevertheless Peter Leko was on centre stage and focused plenty of attention throughout his adolescence.
Hungary was among the top nations of world chess for years. The Hungarian chess remained solid and stable despite some ill effects of the abrupt change of the political situation in the country in the last couple of decades. Moreover, there appeared some brilliant players of a new generation like Leko, the Polgar sisters, Almasi, Peter Acs etc. who became world famous.
1979-93. Tibor Karolyi. Leko wins world championship titles for children and makes two grandmaster norms
Peter was born on September 9th 1979 in the small Hungarian town of Szeged, near the border with Serbia and Rumania. His father taught him to play chess at the age of 7. His parents were quick to understand that the boy was showing phenomenal chess capabilities and decided that Peter should better devote his life to chess. They started looking for a professional chess coach when the boy became 9 and signed a contract with Tibor Karolyi in 1989, a well respected coach in the chess world. Peter's mother quit her job just only to help her son master chess in better conditions. It is true that a lot of parents dream about a brilliant career for their children, but just a few are ready to sacrifice so much to make the dream come true! Peter Leko would have hardly become world famous without the full and gratuitious support of many people, but most of all his parents.
Peter's childhood bliss was practically over after he started to visit Tiber's home and study chess for about 6 hours every day. The systematic work on different openings and endgames at that period would cause a very positive effect on the vast chess erudition of Leko later. He managed to master the main lines of the Rauzer attack, the Ruy Lopez and the Grünfeld defence when he was only ten! Peter was spending so much time with Tiber's family that he became like a part of it! The friendship helped their work and soon the results were striking - Leko's rating increased from 1800 to 2465 in about 4 years of training and he became a strong IM. Soon after that Peter achieved two Grandmaster norms.
Leko enjoyed excellent conditions for studying chess: he had a personal coach, he played a lot of strong tournaments and he started working with a computer early... On the other hand he had to spend plenty of time away from home and that created some problems. His tournament results were rather crucial for the standard of living of his family. So, did his parents make the right choice -definitely yes, no doubt about that. In fact if some parents want to help their children choose chess career they should better consult the vast experience of the Hungarian parents - Polgar and Leko!
Peter was a talented child and had a very professional preparation, so he started showing great results rather early. Here is a list of some of his impressive achievements in his junior years.
He won the World Championship (under 12) in Mamaia 1991.
He won the European Championship (under 14) in Rimavska Sobota 1992.
He tied for 1st - 4th place (but was 4th on the tie-break) in the World Championship in Duisburg 1992.
He tied for 1st - 2nd place (2nd on the tie-break) in the World Championship in Bratislava 1993.
He won the World Championship (under 16) in Szeged 1994.
The promising young player could have prolonged this list, but suddenly he made a resolute and wise decision to stop the series of easy wins! He decided he has nothing more to prove by playing junior tournaments, so he stopped playing in them altogether. Peter became attracted by the games of the adults!
Growing up
Leko was only 12 when he made his first IM norm at the Kecskemet tournament (category 8) in 1991. He made some more IM norms in 1992: the tournaments in Nettetal (category 9) in February, Budapest (category 9) in March, and in Budapest again (the Hungarian championship - category 11) in December. He fulfilled two Grandmaster norms while he was not even 14 yet: in Budapest in April 1993 (category 7) and in Leon (category 12) in May of 1993. This turned him into an idol in Hungary overnight! Leko was extremely confident even when he was very young. Coming to play in the tournament in Leon he said that he could not predict what place he was going to take, but he would make his second GM norm for sure in order to get the GM title. He tied for 3rd to 5th place with Karpov and Topalov (see the scoretable on page 37) and made the GM norm easily. Leko had been playing for six hours with Karpov and he said after the game that he was quite calm against the ex-world champion because he was not risking anything with White." I knew I was not going to lose, but still I would have been a bit surprised had I won. Therefore I played very quietly. " It is inconceivable that many players, even older than Leko then, could have been so cold-blooded durind their first game against legendary Karpov.
Healthy Spirit in Healthy Body
Leko was dreaming to become World Champion as early as 1999 and he was trying his best to prepare himself for the strenuous tasks ahead. He was in a perfect physical condition playing football, tennis and bowling and it was rumoured that he was even capable of running the classical marathon distance of 42,195 m.
Education
Leko was not attending any school lessons at that time, so that he was not distracted from his chess training. He was taking some private lessons before passing the two regular yearly exams at school.
1993-98. Leko's second coach - Andrash Adorjan. Youngest grandmaster in the world, tournaments and... super tournaments
Leko grew up and became too strong, so he decided to part with his first coach Tibor Karoly in the autumn of 1993 and began to take the important decisions of his chess career himself.
Andrash Adorjan, a world famous Grandmaster, became the next coach of the promising young master. Adorjan played in the qualification matches for the world title back in 1979 and that was quite an achievement for the time. The famous grandmaster had efficacious and nonstandard methods of thinking and he put an emphasis on technique and psychology in chess in his training with Leko. They were working together on openings move by move quite meticulously. Adorjan helped Leko learn the Grünfeld defence to perfection and taught him also his pet opening - the Sveshnikov variation of the Sicilian defence, which soon became an integral part of Leko's opening armoury. Nowadays plenty of world's top players are asking themselves before playing Leko "Is it worth starting with 1.e4 and allowing Leko to use the Sveshnikov line?"
Learning Things the Hard Way...
Leko was invited to a strong round robin for the first time in 1994 at the age of 15. His result was a disaster then - he won just one game and lost four in Dortmund (category 16). He played more confidently in his next strong tournament (Horgen - 1994, category 16), but he was still below 50% with one win and two defeats. There he lost his first game against Gary Kasparov, his first "glory" as an adult...
Peter was among the winners in his next tournament in Dortmund 1995 (category 17) where he won two games and lost only one (in the last round!). There he tied for 3rd to 4th place with Ivanchuk in front of the two "K's" Kramnik and Karpov (see the scoretable on page 61). Peter became "a regular" in the super tournaments after that achievement.
Leko had to wait for an invitation to the tournament of "the really chosen players" - Linares till year 1999. The results of the growing-up player in the strongest tournaments of that period were not brilliant, but still they were rather solid - 50% or -1. Leko played like that in Belgrade 1995 (cat. 17), Groningen 1995 (cat. 17), Wijk aan Zee 1996 (cat. 17), Ter Apel 1996 (cat. 15) and Leon 1996 (cat. 17).
Peter was improving rapidly as a chess player competing regularly against the best players in the world. The "regulars" of the super tournaments had to get used to the young Hungarian player's presence among the elite. We should not forget that he was only 17 and that was quite an exception then (nowadays there are plenty like Ponomariov, Grischuk, Radjabov etc.). All the rest of the world chess jet-set were senior to Leko: Ju. Polgar and Svidler were born in 1976, Kramnik and Topalov were born in 1975, Shirov - 1972, Adams - 1971, Anand and Ivanchuk - 1969, Bareev and Khalifman - 1966, Kasparov - 1963 and Karpov was born back in 1951.
Leko would have betrayed his inner self if he had remained content with his reputation of "a difficult to beat player". His coaches until then were mostly defenders and Tigran Petrosian was one of Leko's chess idols while Peter was still a child. He was making plenty of draws which was due to his natural ten-tativeness and unwillingness to risk without stepping on some solid ground first. Leko was working hard on his improvement, detecting and analyzing the flaws of his opponents and that colossal endeavour was taking him slowly but surely to the top of the world chess.
Little by little the quantity began to cause transformation into quality and Leko's results started to improve. He was +1 in Vienne 1996 (cat. 18), Tilburg 1996 (cat.16), Groningen 1996 (cat.16). He started being very efficient in the "normal" tournaments like categories 12 - 13, taking first places in Copenhagen 1995, Cienfuegos 1997 and Yopal 1997. His sharing 2nd to 3rd place in Cacak (cat.13) was accepted almost as a failure. Generally speaking Leko was widely accepted as a player of superb world class when he was 17. The wunderkind turned into a confident adolescent who was still chasing his dream of becoming world champion. His first try however proved to be a disaster. He lost his first round match in the FIDE world championship in Groningen 1997 against Roman Slobodjan - a player who was far from the world's best, with a discouraging result 0.5-1.5. Leko failed even to reach a tie-break! That was a serious blow and it might have taken years to overcome by some weaker personality. Peter Leko has never been a weakling. He proved that immediately with his next results. Peter was very successful in 1998 - he played in 4 super tournaments and lost only only one game, again in the last round. So Leko was fourth in Dortmund (cat. 18), just a point after the three winners: Kramnik, Adams and Svidler.
1999-2002. Sponsor, professional team, marriage...
2002... The Candidates tournament in Dortmund (on the threshold to the match against Kramnik)