page_title: Peter Leko
section_title: Rising to the top
hierarchical_section_title: Peter Leko / Rising to the top
caption_attribution_description: English: Peter Leko, Alisa Maric and Anatoly Karpov, Chess Days 1999 at Dortmund, press centre. Deutsch: Peter Leko, Alisa Maric und Anatoli Karpow, Dortmunder Schachtage 1999 im Pressezentrum bei der Analyse der Partie Leko-Karpow
context_page_description: Peter Leko is a Hungarian chess player. He became the world's youngest grandmaster in 1994. He narrowly missed winning the Classical World Chess Championship 2004: the match was drawn 7–7 and so Vladimir Kramnik retained the title. He also came fifth in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 and fourth in the World Chess Championship 2007.
  Leko has achieved victories in many major chess tournaments, including the annual tournaments at Dortmund, Linares, Wijk aan Zee and the Tal Memorial in Moscow. He won two team silver medals and an individual gold medal representing Hungary at eight Chess Olympiads as well as team bronze and silver and an individual silver medal at three European Team Championships.
  Leko has been ranked as high as fourth in the FIDE world rankings, which he first achieved in April 2003.
context_section_description: Leko showed his class in winning at Copenhagen in 1995 with 8 points out of 11 games. Soon after, Leko competed at Dortmund where he shared third place (5 points out of 9 games) with Vassily Ivanchuk, backing up his new world ranking, placing him 55th with 2605 Elo. At Belgrade, a last round loss to Ivanchuk pushed him down to eighth place. He slipped to last place in Dortmund in 1996 but recovered with fourth place in Vienna (5/9). In 1997, Leko won in Cienfuegos (5/9) and Yopal (6½/9) and took fourth place at the traditional Tilburg chess tournament (7/11) establishing him as a rising star, climbing to 16th in the world rankings in the January 1998 list.
  Leko continued his rise up the rankings with second place (7/11) behind Viswanathan Anand at Tilburg in 1998, fourth place (5/9) in Dortmund and fourth place (6½/14) at Linares in early 1999. Leko's run of form culminated in achieving his first major tournament win (5/7) at Dortmund, half a point ahead of Vladimir Kramnik. It was at this tournament that he met his future wife, Sofia.
  He made his first entry into World Championship tournaments at the FIDE World Chess Championship 1999 held in Las Vegas, defeating Christian Bauer 1½-½ but losing to eventual quarter-finalist Sergei Movsesian after rapid tiebreaks 2½-1½. In January 2000, Leko faced the winner, FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman in a six-game match held in Budapest, which he won 4½-1½.
  Leko followed up his victory by sharing second place (8/13) with Kramnik and Anand at Corus behind a dominant Garry Kasparov, sharing last place (4½/10) at Linares and sharing second place (5/8) with Kramnik at Dortmund. At the FIDE World Chess Championship 2000 held in New Delhi (rounds 1-6) and Tehran (final), Leko was knocked out in the third round by Khalifman (4½-3½) after "sudden death" tiebreaks.
  In 2001, Leko posted solid results in Corus (6½/13), Linares (4½/10), third place in Dortmund (5½/10) and winning an eight-game Chess 960 (Fischer Random Chess) match against Michael Adams at Mainz. The year was rounded off with an early exit in the second round of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2002, held in Moscow, at the hands of Ashot Anastasian (2½-1½) after rapid tiebreaks.
  Leko started 2002 solidly with a sixth-place finish (7/13) at Corus, sharing third place (4½/9) in the NAO Masters held in Cannes and second place (7/9) at Essen behind Vadim Zvjaginsev.
caption: Leko analyses with Karpov, Dortmund 1999
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