Viswanathan Anand is like a snake – you may catch him but can’t hold him

Chess is a highly complex game and it takes years of hard work (a GM works 6-10 hours a day on average) to do well on the global stage. I do not think there is any other sport that is half as complex as chess though I must admit I am heavily biased here.

When Anand lost his World Championship match to the then God of chess Garry Kasparov in 1995, he was accused of lacking killer instinct. To which Anand replied, “I am indeed not a killer like Kasparov. That is not my style.” He has since proved his critics wrong, by winning the World Championship four times, which no other person — including those with ‘killer instincts’ — could manage. Anand has shown the world that it takes more than killer instinct to be the best in the world consistently. One quality that sets him apart is the ability to learn from  past mistakes.

Till Topalov won the World Championship in 2006, Anand relied on the sedate Petroff opening when playing with black. But he stopped playing it often from then on and started employing more fighting openings with black. This shows that Anand learns from his experiences and evolves according to the needs of the time. I’d compare Anand to a snake — you can catch him but it is very difficult to hold him! He always finds a way out of any tough situation.

He got me my first big win
Around 17 years ago, at a dinner with budding players when he was in Chennai (he keeps this up to this day — a simple but tremendous gesture), I remember asking him what to play against a particular Taimanov opening. He reeled off a few games from Chess Informator (a chess periodical) and I ran back to my home to study them. With this information, I achieved my first memorable win against an international master.

Such things never leave your memory. In 1998, Anand had to play out a very gruelling series of matches against many top grandmasters, beating them all without enough rest in between, and immediately after that, he had to meet a well-rested and well-prepared Anatoly Karpov waiting for him. Anand put up a brave fight before going down. Not once did Anand complain about the unfairness of this. He always focuses on doing the job on hand rather than introspecting on things beyond his control.
In 2008, in his match against Vladimir Kramnik, with whom he doesn’t have a great record with black pieces, Anand played some amazing ideas in the Semi Slav opening and won the third game with black pieces.

This, against someone who had not lost a single game with white pieces for more than two years! Such is the depth of his preparations that he has, of late, developed the unnerving habit of being completely unpredictable in his choice of openings.
Kramnik, who is comfortable in simple positions, was forced into myriad complications by Anand in their World Championship match, which showed his ability to spot the minute weaknesses of his formidable opponents. In the just concluded match against Topalov, Anand used a completely opposite strategy — for most of the match, he chose to play quiet positions as Topalov himself thrives in complications. Anand adopted a hit-and-run strategy, never allowing his opponent to guess where the next new idea is going to introduce itself. Every now and then, Anand would come up with a fresh approach and Topalov was made to solve things over the board rather than rely on his months of home preparation.

Did Kramnik pitch in?
I strongly suspect that for this all-important match, Anand has worked with Kramnik, who doesn’t have the nicest of opinions about Topalov — for the right reasons, in my opinion. Anand employed the same openings which Kramnik had used against Topalov in their match in 2007. But this will remain a mystery forever unless Anand throws some light on this.

Another big surprise was the selection of the team that helped in his preparations. I expected some new faces but it was largely unchanged — Peter Heine Nielsen from Denmark, Surya Shekhar Ganguly from India, Rustam Kazhimdzhanov from Uzbekistan, and Wojtacek from Poland. And what a team it was! In such important matches, a player usually takes the help of many GMs to analyse various opening variations with the help of computer engines and their own knowledge. The composition of the team could reveal the areas the player is working on. So it is vitally important that the opposition doesn’t know about the team members. I understand that Anand’s team members never left their hotel for fear that someone might see them!

This was one of the most difficult and interesting matches the chess world has witnessed in quite some time. It brought back memories of Kasparov-Karpov rivalry of the ’80s and early ’90s. Anand proved he could handle his emotions and nerves better than the best in the business to retain his World Championship title.
RB Ramesh is a Chennai-based grandmaster