India’s Chess Hero Retains Crown

[Yeti]

Cricket, cricket, cricket, hockey, cricket, soccer, cricket, cricket, shooting, cricket, cricket, wrestling, cricket, cricket, kabaddi, cricket, cricket, chess, cri… wait, what was that? Chess?

Yes. Chess. India’s Vishwanathan Anand has done it again, dragging this most mentally-challenging of sports back into the limelight with yet another world championship win. With victory, Anand takes his tally of world chess titles to five. That he won in the chess hotbed of Russia, against a Belarusian emigrant too, makes his achievement all the more remarkable.

“I’m probably too tense to be happy, but I’m really relieved,” Anand said after the match, which went right down to the wire. Tied at six-six after 12 regular games, Anand and his challenger, Boris Gelfand – now of Israel — faced off in a tiebreaker, which Anand won 2.5-1.5.

“This was definitely the toughest [world championship] ever because we went all the way to the tie-break and that hasn’t happened to me before,” Anand told television channel NDTV after the match.

“I always had the feeling that Boris Gelfand would be a very tough opponent because I knew that he was enormously motivated and had done a lot of work, spent several months – I believe even four or five months – [preparing],” the 42-year-old said, conjuring up an image, in my mind at least, of Gelfand sweating blood and guts as he trained in a Siberian wilderness like that Rocky character Ivan Drago.

“I believe it was entirely a question of nerves, and my nerves held up till the very end,” Anand added.

I’ll admit to not knowing a great deal about chess – my cousin always beat me (at chess, not with a lathi) when I was younger, prompting me to scurry off for a nice, easy game of Battleships, or solo Twister, instead. But experts seem to agree that this title clash between Anand and Gelfand was a real thriller.

“We’re seeing so many attacks and counterattacks in the games that they give me goose bumps… this is very exciting,” the Associated Press quoted Lev Khristoforov, described as a long-time chess fan from Moscow, as saying. The 80-year-old was one of hundreds of fans crowded outside the State Tretyakov Gallery watching the chess drama unfold on a giant screen, the AP said.

Anand’s triumph was warmly welcomed by the Indian press, which dedicated a large amount of space for him. He’s unlikely to get the kind of “felicitation” in his hometown of Chennai that we saw earlier this week with the Kolkata Knight Riders cricket team in West Bengal, but a hero’s welcome awaits, nonetheless.

Chess is hardly the most fashionable of sports, but it is hugely popular. There’s no need to add any Indian Premier League razzle-dazzle – imagine chess cheerleaders, fancily colored pawns and highly paid foreign rooks – to chess. It is what it is, and Anand is a superstar.



India’s Chess Hero Retains Crown - India Real Time - WSJ

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Congratulations to Vishwanathan Anand.

Playing high-level Chess is extremely taxing on the human mind. Only a few people in the world have the ability to calculate that many moves ahead.

 

[Yeti]

A day after IPL winners Kolkata Knight Riders were put on a world champion- like pedestal in a nation besotted with cricket, a 'Chennai super king' made the perfect moves to remain entrenched at the pinnacle of the globe's most cerebral sport.
Viswanathan Anand retained his world chess title, outgunning Israeli challenger Boris Gelfand in a quick-fire shootout on Wednesday and crowning himself in glory for the fifth time - the fourth in a row.
The 42-year-old Indian ace may not have been at his very best in the Classical version but, in the end, it was just about enough to keep an impressive Gelfand at bay.

After a 6-6 tie in the 12-Game Classical series, Anand won the second of the four Rapids and drew the remaining three to emerge a 2½ to 1½ victor.

He now becomes the oldest world champion after Mikhail Botvinnik. In the final moments, it was Anand and the clock versus Gelfand.

The challenger put up a great fight, but bowed to both.

By contrast, the hallmark of Anand's success was his speed. Often, Gelfand was seen down to his last few seconds when Anand still had a few minutes left on his clock.
The victory also meant that the 'King of Chess' will keep the crown till 2014, when the next World Championship will be held. Back home in Chennai, a grand welcome awaits Anand with his parents ecstatic at their son's feat. 'It is a proud moment,' the champion's father Viswanathan Iyer, a retired railway official, said, adding: 'He has beaten the best of the chess world.

It's a unique achievement. I am unable to control my emotions,' gushed his mother Susheela Viswanathan. She has been playing the role of mentor to the chess legend since his childhood. Though the city might not do a Kolkata, the Tamil Nadu Chess Association is planning a grand celebration for the son of the soil.
'He is an inspiring icon for the youth and the felicitation would be befitting this accomplishment,' association secretary Murali Mohan said. 'If the government decides to bestow the Bharat Ratna on a sportsperson, it must first be given to Anand,' World Chess Association vice-president BV Sundar said.
About the stiff contest between Anand and Gelfand, Anand's wife Aruna remarked: 'It's (the match) an indication of how high the level of the preparation was.' Anand's great support unit gives a clear insight into his meticulous preparation ahead of the big game.

The chess players in Team Anand include Radoslav Wojtazjek, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Rustam Kasiimdzhanov and Peter Heiine Nielsen. His wife is his pillar of support.

The administrative set-up comprises Hans Walter Schmitt, Eric van Reem, Christian Bossert and Mark Lefler. World champion since 2007, Anand won the junior title in 1989 and became India's first Grandmaster at the age of 16.

He became the first Asian to win the FIDE World Chess Championship after defeating Spain's Alexei Shirov in Tehran in 2000.

Then Anand won the tournament in Mexico to become world champ in 2007. In 2008 and 2010, he beat Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov in two thrilling matchplays.

His win on Wednesday marks the first time that he has clinched the title in the tie-breaker.

The Tamil Nadu-born world chess champion lives in Spain with his wife Aruna and one-year-old son. Anand, who became an International Master while still a teenager, started solving chess puzzles displayed on television as a six-year-old.


Read more: High five for Anand: Viswanathan Anand wins tense tie-breaker to become five time world champion after beating Israel¿s Boris Gelfand | Mail Online

Great site to play online chess is flyordie you can play with anyone across the world.


Anand, who became an International Master while still a teenager, started solving chess puzzles displayed on television as a six-year-old.


Natural talent this guy was born with a gift

 

[Raphael]

Congrats to him. Anand is really impressive, I think he could hold his own against Kasporov in his prime.

 

[Hulk]

Congrats Vishi.