Viswanathan Anand
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Viswanathan Anand (pronounced Vis'wah'nəh'thən Ah'nənd) (born December 11, 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster. In the October 2005 FIDE Elo rating list, Anand has a rating of 2788, making him the number one in the world among active players (since Garry Kasparov recently retired). Anand has been one of the strongest non-Soviet players since Bobby Fischer, along with the Hungarian Péter Lékó and the Bulgarian Veselin Topalov.
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Chess career
Anand's rise in the Indian chess world was meteoric. National level success came early for him when he won the National Sub-Junior Chess Championship with a score of 9/9 in 1983 at the age of fourteen. He became the youngest Indian to win the International Master's Title at the age of fifteen, in 1984. At the age of sixteen he became the National Champion and won that title two more times. He played games at blitz speed, earning him the nickname "Lightning Kid" ("Blitz chess" is known in India as "Lightning chess"). In 1987, he became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship. In 1988, at the age of eighteen, he became India's First Grandmaster.
"Vishy", as he is sometimes called, burst upon the upper echelons of the chess scene in the early 1990s, winning such tournaments as Reggio Emilia 1991 (ahead of Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov). Playing at such a high level did not slow him down either, and he continued to play games at blitz speed. In 1991, he lost in a tie-breaker to Anatoly Karpov in the quarter finals of the FIDE Knockout World Chess Championship.
Anand qualified for the Professional Chess Association World Chess Championship final by winning the candidates matches against Michael Adams and Gata Kamsky. In 1995, he played a title match against Kasparov in New York City's World Trade Center. After an opening run of eight draws (a record for the opening of a world championship match), Anand won game nine using a splendid sacrifice on the queen side, but then lost four of the next five. He lost the match 10.5 - 7.5.
Anand won three consecutive Advanced Chess tournaments in Leon, Spain after Garry Kasparov introduced this form of chess in 1998, and is widely recognized as the world's best Advanced Chess player, where humans may consult a computer to aid in their calculation of variations.
Anand's recent tournament successes include the prestigious Corus chess tournament in years 2003 and 2004 and Dortmund in 2004. He has won the annually held Monaco Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Championships in years 1994, 1997, 2003 and 2005.
Anand has won the Chess Oscar in 1997, 1998, 2003, and 2004. His four Oscars ties him with Kasparov for the most ever, one better than Fischer's three. The Chess Oscar is awarded to the year's best player according to a world-wide poll of leading chess critics, writers, and journalists conducted by the Russian chess magazine 64.
His game collection, My Best Games of Chess, was published in the year 1998 and was updated in 2001.
World Chess Champion
After several near misses, Anand finally won the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2000 after defeating Alexei Shirov 3.5 - 0.5 in the final match held at Teheran, thereby becoming the first Indian to win that title. He lost the title to Ruslan Ponomariov in 2002.
He became shared second in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 (together with Peter Svidler) with 8.5 points out of 14 games, lagging 1.5 points behind the winner, Veselin Topalov.
World Rapid Chess Champion
In October 2003, the governing body of chess, FIDE, organized a rapid time control tournament in Cap d'Agde and billed it as the World Rapid Chess Championship. Each player had 25 minutes at the start of the game, with an additional 10 seconds after each move. Anand won this event ahead of ten of the other top twelve players in the world with Kasparov being the only missing player. Anand is still deservedly considered to be the world's finest Rapid Chess player.He has consistently won almost all rapid events defeating many top players and his main achievements in this Category are at : Corsica , Leon , Amber events where he dominated almost all elite players .
Chess titles
- 1983 National Sub-Junior Chess Champion - age 14
- 1984 International Master - age 15
- 1985 Indian National Champion - age 16
- 1987 World Junior Chess Champion, Grandmaster
- 2000 FIDE World Chess Champion
- 2003 FIDE World Rapid Chess Champion
Awards
Anand has received many awards.
- Arjuna award for Outstanding Indian Sportsman in Chess in 1985
- Padma Shri, National Citizens Award and Soviet Land Nehru Award in 1987
- The inaugural Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, India's highest sporting honour in the year 1991-1992.
- British Chess Federation 'Book of the Year' Award in 1998 for his book My Best Games of Chess
- Chess Oscar (1997, 1998, 2003 and 2004)
Further reading
- Viswanathan Anand, My Best Games of Chess (Gambit, 2001 (new edition))
Sample game
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| In this position after move 36 in the 2000 FIDE World Championship game between Viswanathan Anand and Viktor Bologan, Anand (White), in an apparently worse position, finds an intuitive sacrifice that leads to a winning attack. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
On his way to winning the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2000, Anand defeated Grandmaster Viktor Bologan with the white pieces. Here are the moves in algebraic notation (Analysis by Grandmaster Ljubomir Ftacnik):
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Nb8 10. d4 Nbd7 11. Nbd2 Bb7 12. Bc2 Re8 13. Nf1 Bf8 14. Ng3 c5 15. d5 c4 16. Bg5 Qc7 17. Nf5 Kh8 18. g4 Ng8 19. Qd2 Nc5 20. Be3 Bc8 21. Ng3 Rb8 22. Kg2 a5 23. a3 Ne7 24. Rh1 Ng6 25. g5! b4!? Anand has an excellent kingside attack, so Bologan seeks counterplay with the sacrifice of a pawn. 26. axb4 axb4 27. cxb4 Na6 28. Ra4 Nf4+ 29. Bxf4 exf4 30. Nh5 Qb6 31. Qxf4 Nxb4 32. Bb1 Rb7 33. Ra3 Rc7 34. Rd1 Na6 35. Nd4 Qxb2 36. Rg3 c3(See diagram) 37. Nf6!! Re5 If 37...gxf6, 38. gxf6 h6 39. Rg1! Qd2! 40. Qh4 leaves white with an irresistable initiative. 38. g6! fxg6 39. Nd7 Be7 40. Nxe5 dxe5 41. Qf7 h6 42. Qe8+ 1-0
External links
| Preceded by: Alexander Khalifman |
FIDE World Chess Champion 2000–2002 |
Succeeded by: Ruslan Ponomariov |
