Leko Peter (08.09.1979)

Hungarian Grandmaster. In 1994, at the age of 15, he became at that time the youngest ever GM. Gold medal at the World U16 in 1994, silver medal at the World U14 in 1993 and bronze at the World U10 in 1989 at the U14 in 1990 and 1992. Leko doesn’t hide his far-going intentions to win the title of World Champion.

Leko performed brilliantly in 1995 at Copenhagen where he was the first. In 1997 he also was the winner of the international tournaments in Havana and Yapolo. Participated without too much success in the last three FIDE World Championships. In 1999 he made one of his best achievements by winning the super Dortmund Tournament. In 2000 after beating the FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman 4.5-1.5 in a rapid match at Budapest, he married the daughter of his coach A. Petrosian. In 2001 he lost a rapid mach to Kramnik 7-5. He won the first FIDE Grand Prix Rapid Chess Tournament of Dubai in 2002 and the Dortmund Braingames Candidates Tournament which gave him the right to challenge Vladimir Kramink for the Classical World Championship Final Match in 2004. At the Bled Olympics he remained unbeaten as the first board player of the silver medalist Hungarian team. Lékó started the year 2003 superbly too, the trade press was enthusiastic about his triumph in Linares and his combative way of playing attracted admiration. The different problems in connection with the final of the World Championship affected his performance negatively, but from January 2004, he has been on the track again. In Wijk aan Zee he finished unbeaten. He has been in the front-line for quite long in the super tournament in Linares, but, unfortunately, he was deprived of the triumph by a bad luck loss against Vladimir Kramnik; he became second in a dead heat with Garry Kasparov. In Moscow, in the Petrosian Memorial Tournament, he showed the best individual performance as the guest player of the Armenian national team. In Brissago, in the final of the World Championship against Vladimir Kramnik, he came back after a weak start. After losing the first game he equalised in the fifth one and, moreover, by a superb winning in the eighth one, he took the lead, which he had until the last, the fourteenth game. He missed only half a point for having the title, but the experienced opponent won the last game and defended the title. Lékó Péter finished unbeaten in Wijk aan Zee in January 2005, beating Viswanathan Anand with black. Leko is ranked with 2763 ELO-points, fourth in the FIDE rank list published 1st April 2005. In 2006 he succeeded at the Tal Memorial sharing the first place with Aronian and in 2007 he won the First ACP Rapid Chess Cup. Later he lost a rapid match to Kramnik (4½-3½), beat Mikhail Gurevich 1-3 and Evgeny Bareev 1-3 to qualify for the World Championship Tournament 2007. In 2008 he succeeded once more at Dortmund and lost an exhibition match to Carlsen 3-5. Later at the 2008 Olympiad, he was awarded a gold medal for the best performance made at board 1. In 2009 he lost an exhibition match to Viswanathan Anand 3–5 and in 2010 to Boris Gelfand Viswanathan Anand 3½–5½. No doubt that Peter has enough talent to improve considerably his chess records. So far his performance for remaining in the top 20 shows that he has his place among the generation of Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, and others. Best ElO: 2763 in 2005.