On June 25 Vladimir Kramnik celebrates his 38th birthday. Our present for the XIV Classical World Chess Champion is 25 more "Kramnik facts" - short humorous observations about him.

1)      Kramnik solves chess puzzles before they are even created.

2)      Kramnik doesn’t follow anyone on Twitter. Twitter follows him.

3)      All the camera men of Tal Memorial became GMs after having watched a press conference by Vladimir Kramnik.

4)      Kramnik’s “Greatest games” book will be published in 50 volumes. It includes ALL of his games.

5)      A chess engine was advertised as “it once came close to drawing Kramnik”.

6)      Vladimir Kramnik declined a lucrative offer to write a book about chess improvement. He doesn’t know what it’s like not to be perfect at chess.

7)      Confidential information: tournament organizers have asked Kramnik to act as if he actually needs time to make a move. Vladimir won two Chess Oscars for his acting.

8)      Veselin Topalov was recently quoted saying “Kramnik doesn’t exist for me”. That is the only way he can keep thinking about himself as the world’s best chess player.

9)      Most players retire when they can’t compete with their opponents. When Kramnik decides to retire, it will be to give other chess players a chance to attract the public attention.   

10)   Vladimir Kramnik always finishes first in tournaments. At Tal Memorial-2013 he decided to finish first from the other side. Time for a change.

11)   When a chess player returns home from a game, his family asks him what the result was. After a game with Kramnik the usual question is: “How badly did he beat you?”

12)   The en passant rule was introduced after Kramnik moved to Paris to make learning French easier for him.

13)   Today Kramnik turns 38, and his rating is 2803. “Next year I will be rated 2903”, he commented modestly.

14)   Once Vladimir Kramnik was granted a KBE title. “Knight? Pfff. King, only king”, he said and refused to accept the award.

15)   When Kramnik was young, few people recognized him, so he could play chess for a stake. Now he has to pay his opponents to make them confront him: they don’t like their egos being crushed over and over again.

16)   Kasparov used to claim that trying to beat Kramnik is an even more hopeless activity than banging one’s head against the Berlin wall and hoping to see it collapse.

17)   Kramnik’s record against Judit Polgar is +14 -0 =11. A TV host once reprimanded him for not being a gentleman. “I did make a few draws, you know”, snapped back Vladimir.

18)   Rapper PSY is Vladimir Kramnik’s alter ego.

19)   Why was Kramnik expelled from the university? The other students were studying him, not the courses.

20)   There is just one person in the world who is allowed to offer resignation – Vladimir Kramnik.

21)   – Vladimir, do you have a personal website? – I thought it was Chess.com…

22)   When asked what his favorite opening was, Kramnik confessed: “Openings are names people give to the positions that are well-known to them. Hence, my favorite opening is chess”.

23)   When a certain tournament board is missing chess pieces at the start of a game for some reason, Kramnik is always willing to give the organizers a hand and to offer such odds to his opponent.

24)   Borislav Ivanov increased his chess mastery rapidly by purchasing Kramnik’s autographs on E-bay.

25)   – Vladimir, do you believe chess is a draw? – Believe? No. I know it.

	1. Written by Vladimir Kramnik on 08:37 25 èþíÿ 2013 ã.
	Why "humorous"? This is all true! http://kramnik.com

	2. Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 14:30 25 èþíÿ 2013 ã.
	Great stuff, really made my day. My favorite one was the "favorite opening".

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