Anand Viswanathan (11.12.1969)
Indian Grandmaster (1988). World Champion 2000-2001 and 2007-2013. World Rapid Chess Champion in 2003 and 2017.
Viswanathan Anand is regarded as the greatest sportsperson of India and has gained worldwide recognition. In a glorious career starting in 1984, Anand has taken Indian chess to new heights.
In 1983-84 he was the winner of the National Sub-Junior Championship and set a new record scoring 9 points of 9 possible. He participated in the 1984 World Cadets Championship and shared the 2nd place having won the Bronze medal. Both in 1984 and 1985 he won Lloyd’s Bank Junior as well as the Asian Junior (under 19) Championships, where he earned the title of International Master being the youngest Asian chess player ever to have achieved such a distinction. In 1986 he took part in the Asian Team Championship where his team won the Silver medal. He was National ‘A’ Chess Champion three times during the period of 1986-88. He took first place in Arab-Asian International Chess Championship in 1986. Due to his successful participation in international tournaments in 1987, he got the highest ELO rating of 2500 among Indian chess players. The same year he shared the first place in Sakthi Finance International Grandmasters Chess Tournament and became the first Indian Grandmaster and the youngest Grandmaster in the World at that time.
In 1988 he was the first Asian chess player to win Wijk aan Zee. In a very strong tournament at Wijk aan Zee (1989) he showed his best play and was equal first with a score +4=7-2. In 1989 he succeeded at the 4th International Games Festival in France, Veterans vs. Youth Tournament where he convincingly came in 2nd, having beaten two former World Champions: Boris Spassky and Mikhail Tal and was the 1st among young players. The same year he was the winner of the 1st National Active Chess at Pune in India and of the 2nd Asian Active Chess Championships in Hong Kong. Participated in 1989 in the Asian Team Chess Championship he scored 7 points out of 7 games and also in the Strongest Open tournament in history with 184 Grandmasters. In 1990 at the Manila Interzonal Tournament he was equal 3rd with Nigel Short out of 64 players and became a Candidate.
He qualified for the Interzonal after his victory in the Asian Zonal Championship in 1990. In the same year, he achieved 1st at the Manchester Chess Festival and at the Asian Open Chess Championship in Manila. He took the 3rd place at Manila Chess Interzonal and thus qualified for Candidates matches in 1990. Furthermore, in 1990, he shared the 1st place at the Triveni International Super Grandmasters Tournament at Delhi in India. In 1991 at Madras he beat Alexy Dreev scoring +4=1-1 in the first round of the Candidates’ matches, in the quarterfinal he lost the World Championship match at Brussels to Anatoly Karpov.
In 1992 at the Alekhine Memorial at Moscow he was the winner ahead of Karpov and achieved an ELO of 2700. The same year at Paris at Immopar Trophy Anand lost the final match to Garry Kasparov.
At the Manila Chess Olympiad in 1992, he was the captain of the Indian chess team and did not lose one game playing on the top board. In 1992 he shared the 1st place at the Goodrich Open International Tournament in Calcutta.
In 1993 playing in FIDE Candidates Circle Interzonal at Biel, Switzerland, he qualified for the Candidates cycle. That year he became the winner of the strongest Swiss tournament at the PCA Interzonal at Groningen. In 1994 he achieved 1st place in the Melody Amber tournament in Monaco followed by Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik and Vasily Ivanchuk. The same year at New York he defeated Oleg Romanishin and at Linares he beat Michael Adams in the candidates’ matches. In 1995 he participated in the World Championships in New York and lost the match after a see-saw 3rd week and achieved the World’s No.2 position in the PCA Ranking list. In 1996, playing among the top six players in the world at the strongest tournament of all time at Las Palmas “Super Torneo de Ajerdez”. Anand took the 2nd place. The same year he defeated Kasparov in the final match at Geneva, Credit Swiss Rapid Chess Grand Prix and was equal first with Kramnik at the prestigious tournament in Dortmund.
In 1997 he took part in Computer chess event and gave a Display at the Aegon Man, being one of the players who played simultaneously with six computers and won 4-2. The same year in Monaco, in the Melody Amber tournament he achieved the 1st place in blindfold and rapid, being the first player in the history of the tournament to do so. In 1997 he became the winner of the Belgrade “Invesbanka Chess tournament”, in Biel he won the 2nd prize and the prize for the most beautiful game. That time he won Chess Classic Rapid Tournament at Frankfurt, Germany and was qualified for the Finals with 2 rounds to spare and defeated Karpov in the finals. The most remarkable event of that year was the Knock-out Championship in Groningen and Lausanne, where he was the qualifier for the World Championship Finals. He won three out of the top ten players in the World: Alexy Shirov, Boris Gelfand and Michael Adams in the final tiebreak. He thus holds the unique record of winning – at the time – the strongest ever Knock-Out Championship in the history of chess. He played the last stage against Karpov who had the advantage of being seeded straight into the Finals. Playing 31 games in 30 days, Anand tied the match 3-3, but lost in the tie-break. In 1998 he won the strongest tournament in Linares, Spain, and the 60th Hoogoven’s tourn
ament at Wijk Aan Zee. By 1998 his ELO rating reached 2795 being the second in the world, only 5 points behind Kasparov. Anand was awarded the Chess “Oscar” for 1997 in Moscow. In 1998 he won the “Siemens Nixdorf Duell” tournament at Frankfurt having beat the world open category computer chess Champion Fritz 5 with the score 1½-½. The same year he became the Champion of the Fontys – Tilburg international tournament and took his 1998 record to 4 wins in 5 events entered. In 1999 he took the 1st prize at the Wydra Memorial Rapid Chess at Haifa, Israel, at 61st Hoogoven’s Schaak Tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, Holland, where he made a record plus 6 score, and also at Leon “Torneo magistral de Ajedrez” tournament when he convinciMagistral Karpov with a score 5-1. Owing to his brilliant victories he was awarded Chess Oscar for the second time in a row. In the year 2000 after another win in the Rapid of Haifa he went to win the Super Frankfurt Master and shared first place in Dortmund with Kramnik. He was the top player to participate in the first World Cup in Shenyang and didn’t disappoint anyone by taking the first prize beating the Russian Evgeny Bareev in final.
Then he focused himself on the World Championship and a few months later, first in India, then in Iran, he topped all the participants and after defeating Alexy Shirov 4½-½ he was crowned the 15th FIDE World Chess Champion – a world title which he lost in 2002 but recaptured it in 2007 against Vladimir Kramnik in Bonn, winning convincingly by taking a 3 win lead after 6 games. In 2010, he defended his crown against Veselin Topalov on his opponent’s home ground in Sofia, Bulgaria, winning narrowly 6½-5½.
In 2012, he managed once more to keep his title after an exciting fight versus Boris Gelfand in Moscow. By the end of the twelve games, however, the match was tied at 6 points each, so four rapid games were played in order to produce a result. Anand won the rapid-game playoff with a win in the second game and draws in the other three games. A year later, in 2013 in Madras, Anand was opposed to the young world star Magnus Carlsen. The Norwegian won the match 6½–3½ after ten of the twelve scheduled games, becoming the new world chess champion.
Best results: winner or shared first in 1987 at Koimbator, 1990 at Manchester; in 1991/92 at Reggio Emilia ahead of Karpov and Kasparov; in 1992 at Moscow and Amsterdam; in 1993 at Amsterdam and Monaco; in 1994 at Moscow followed by Kasparov; in 1996 at Dortmund, Las Palmas and Villarrobiedo; in 1997 at Dos Hermanas, Monaco, Frankfurt, Biel and Belgrade; in 1998 at Wijk aan Zee, Villarrobiedo Tilburg and Madrid; in 1999 at Monaco, Wydra; in 2000 Frankfurt, Corsica Master and the World Championship tournament at Delhi/Teheran; in 2001 Villarrobiedo, Merida and Corsica; in 2002 Prague, Corsica; in 2003 Corus, Cap d’ Agde; in 2004 Corus, Sao Polo, Corsica, Monaco, Dortmund; in 2005 Monaco, in 2006 Corus and World Championship tournament at Mexico, in 2007 Linares/Morelia, in 2011 at Botvinnik Memorial in Moscow, in 2014 the Candidates Tournament, in 2016 at Saint Louis and in 2018 at Tal Memorial.
Anand played several matches. In 1987 he won a match with David Levitt with the score 2½:1½; in 1991 won a match against Alexy Dreev 4½:1½; in 1992 beat Vasily Ivanchuk 5:3; in 1994 beat Arthur Yusupov 4½:2½; in 1995 at Las Palmas he won a match against Gata Kamsky 6½:4½ and in 1997 he beat Miguel Illescas with the score 4½:1½, in 1999 he beat Anatoly Karpov with the help of a computer 5-1; the same year he beat Fritz 6 2½-1½; in 2001 he beat Alexy Shirov 2½-1½ and drew with Vladimir Kramnik 5-5; in 2002 he beat Ruslan Ponomariov 4½-3½; in 2003 he beat Judith Polgar 5-3; in 2004 he beat Alexy Shirov 5-3, in 2005 he beat Alexander Grischuk 5-3; in 2006 he beat Teimour Radjabov 5-3 and Veselin Topalov 2½-1½.; in 2008 he beat Magnus Carlsen 3-1 and Vladimir Kramnik 6½-4½; in 2010 he beat Veselin Topalov 6½-5½.
Viswanathan Anand has been awarded by many prestigious awards in India like the Arjuna Award, the Padmashri (the youngest recipient of the title), the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, the Soviet Land Nehru award, the BPL Achievers of the World, Sportstar, Sportsworld “Sportsman of the year 1995” Award.
1. 1985: Arjuna award for Outstanding Indian Sportsman in Chess
2· 1987: Padma Shri, National Citizens Award and Soviet Land Nehru Award
3· 1991-1992: Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award
4· 1998: British Chess Federation ‘Book of the Year’ Award for his book ‘My Best Games of Chess’
5· 2000: Padma Bhushan
6· 2001: Jameo de Oro the highest honor given by the Government of Lanzarote in Spain 7·
1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008: Chess Oscar
8· 1998: Sportstar Millennium Award 9· 2007: Padma Vibhushan.
Anand received also the “Jameo de Oro”, One of Spain’s highest civilian awards given to a foreigner.
Peak rating: 2817 in 2011. He was then the best world ranked player.
