Final Chess Masters Bilbao 2008

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VISWANATHAN ANAND (ELO 2798)
Madras (now Chennay, India), 11.12.1969

A modest and genius champion

“I couldn’t care less about my mental power or whatever it is said about me in the chess encyclopaedias in a hundred years time”. Viswanathan Anand is no doubt one of the greatest genius in chess history in the last fifteen centuries. But his easy-going character makes him the complete opposite of Fischer, Kárpov and Kaspárov. World champion and number one at the age of 38, he lives in Collado Mediano (Madrid), the rapid of Madras wants to polish even more his record in Bilbao at a month from the struggle for the crown with Russian Vladímir Krámnik.

“Although it is my second world title, this one is more valuable because in 2000 chess was suffering from a schism and there were two champions. Now I am the only one. The dream has come true” he explained in Mexico City on 1st October 2007, before calling his parents who live in Chennai (former Madras) and his “Spanish father”, Mauricio Perea.

Anand works very hard on the technical aspects, something like six to nine hours a day. He probably lacks of the “murderous instinct” that distinguished Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov, but looks after his physical stamina as much or even more than they did. “Yes, I realised it was essential years ago. I’m convinced the two hours I spend everyday in the gym when I am at home in Collado Mediano are essential to be able to stand the wear and tear of the tournaments”, he explains in perfect Spanish.

His amazingly quick reflexes that allow him to see brilliant moves in tenths of a second overwhelmed his rivals ever since he first appeared in Linares in 1991, where it hardly took him half an hour to play a whole game. “Well, this is just because if I think, I don’t play well” was his peculiar way to explain it. Anand still shows that unaffected way of those days, very highly regarded in India, he was appointed the sportsman of the millennium by popular ballot and was ridden in a carriage cutting the heavy traffic in Chennai while a huge crowd of people lavished him passionately. Once he was tested to prove that his cerebral hemisphere, the one that rules intuition, was that of an extremely gifted person, and his reaction was: “I couldn’t care less about my mental power”.

During his first speech as unified world chess champion he first thanked his wife Aruna, “who always takes well care of so many details”, and secondly he thanked his coach, Danish Peter Heine Nielsen: “Of all my four wins in this World Championship, three are in great deal due to his magnificent work”. Karpov and Kasparov would have never been so generous with his assistants.

With $390,000 more in his account coming from that world chess champion title, Anand is facing 2008 without any lack of ambition: he clearly won the Morelia-Linares Tournament (the chess Wimbledon) and planned in great detail his battle with Krámnik in Bonn in the middle of October, with a sum of one million euros. Part of his preparation will entail fighting for the first prize in the Grand Slam Final Masters in Bilbao: “Playing with the best ones in the world in a tournament like this one is an appropriate way to keep fit”. And he will continue to raise passions in a 1,100 million-inhabitant country: “There are already 700,000 kids having chess classes. I hope to contribute there will be many more”.

VISWANATHAN ANAND’S RECORD

1987: World Junior Chess Champion
1988: Grandmaster
2000: World Chess Champion (FIDE version)
2003: World Chess Champion in Rapid Games (FIDE version)
2007: World Chess Champion (the only one)
Chess Oscar: 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004 and 2007