At this point, some players had trouble. In order to find the next two moves for Black, you would have had to have noticed two things. First, White has very little control of the dark squares since, currently, his knight and bishop are light square controlling. Second, after the 34. Kg1, White's queen and king rest on dark squares.

Given the above, Black's idea of pinning White's queen to the king with his bishop is straightforward. But, to do that, Black must first move his queen. 34. ... Qc3 is arrived at because it is the only safe, dark square that covers the bishop on e3.

White's reply is practically forced since any move other than 35. Re1 loses material. But, again, Re1 is subject to attack by Black's dark square bishop from d2. After 35. Re1 Bd2, White cannot avoid losing material, which at this point, means losing the game. Good piece of tactics from Kramnik.

As an aside, this was a pretty passive game by White, and he paid for it. White parried Black's queen side play nicely, but in the face of Black's imminent f5 thrust to break up the center, he castled king side. It's not really a bad move, but its not the strongest move since it does not pressure Black in any way.

Since Black is under no pressure to play f5 immediately, 17. ... g6 strengthens his grip on f5. After the tactical moves of 18. Qe2 (better was Qd3) Bd7 19. Rfa1 Bh6, White misses his last chance to hold the center when he plays 20. g3? (intending a later f4). Better would have been Rd1, or Nce3 followed by f3. From move 20 on, it's all about Black's steamroller pawns and White's attempts to stop them.

The rook is attack but must not leave the file on penalty of 36...♗e3,winning the queen or the first rank on penalty of mate.

A possible conclusion:

You wrote: "It appears as if white was put in handcuffs-and then tickled."

Humorous observation!

However, on obvious tactic is 33...Bh3! forcing 34.Kg1 (or else white loses his Q). What does this accomplish? It sets up other tactics!

One is that now black's K and Q are on a diagonal that can be pinned by our DSB (which happens to be well-placed for that purpose). Another is that white's K is facing back-rank dangers now that g2 is and f1 are under our control.

To activate the DSB pin, we need to vacate our Q from e3 so we can put the bishop there, but do it with attack so white doesn't have time to defend. It's not hard to find something to attack with our queen, and again, 34...Qc3 attacking the rook (and the knight) is the clear choice.

White has one way to save his rook and defend against the bishop pin (...Be3), and thats 35.Re1.

This is the first time I had to really think hard. However, in the absence of any other useful ideas, I eventually considered the blunt attack on the rook with 35...Bd2!, and somewhat to my surprise, it leaves white helpless. :-)

BUT, I did not see the all important move 35..Bd2.

How would you proceed after 33...Bh3+ 34.Kg1 Rc8 <35.Rd1>? This seems to kill the ...Rc1+ threat while guarding our knight, and our rook is now guarded by the bishop.