Vishy Anand Becomes The World Chess Champion

[mcgillianaire]

I've been waiting for this moment my whole life, especially after the disappointment against Kasparov in 1995. The crowning glory to an awesome career. The media is obviously going to say he's retained his title but the truth is, a tournament blitz is to chess what Twenty20 and ODIs are to cricket. They're hit and giggles but not the real thing. It's a pity the two finalists could not play a proper chess Test match but it's better than nothing. Kramnik was comprehensively outmaneuvered in most of the games. Anand surprised the Russian with a number of novelty moves and was adventurous enough to forsake his usual e4 opening with d4 instead. And despite a lapse in concentration in the tenth game, it would be fair to say that there was only ever going to be one winner, after Anand took a three point lead by the half-way stage. The days of 24 game Finals are sadly behind us but at least the Titles have been united and we can safely say that in Kasparov's absence, Vishy Anand is officially the world's best chess player. Congratulations mate. You've done India and Tamils proud. JAI HIND!

(Incidentally, it is worth mentioning that Anand becomes the first person to win the game's biggest crown in three different formats. In 2000 he won the 128-player knockout format, last year he won an eight-player double round-robin format (that included Kramnik) and now this.)

Comments

[drunkendeadcat.livejournal.com]

yeh congratulations to him :)

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, after 10 straight games of 1. d4, Anand changed it up with 1. e4 in the 11th (and last) game. Kramnik had presumably spent a large part of his preparation working out how to reply to 1. e4 (since Anand always used to open with it), but he was definitely taken by surprise when Anand pulled it out in game 11 - he thought for two minutes (!!!) before replying with 1... c5.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

>Anand pulled it out in game 11 - he thought for two minutes (!!!) before replying with 1... c5.
I noticed that as well, bloody brilliant on Anand's part. In fact, if you look closely at the picture above I'd wager that it was taken exactly during those two minutes. It's not a good angle to determine which pawn Anand has moved exactly but I wouldn't be surprised if The Hindu has taken that from the last game in which case it would be during those two minutes.

And you're right, Kramnik and Leko (who incidentally used to be Anand's second) would've prepared for e4. A stroke of genius on Anand's part but I also like the novelties he came up with in one of the earlier games that forced Kramnik to pause for about half-an-hour. I'd've loved to have seen his mind at work right then. I was also surprised by how long Anand took towards the end of one of the earliest drawn games... it was something like 48 minutes and it resulted him in having only a handful of minutes left on the clock when they agreed to a draw.

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

You can see more photos here.

Time pressure is fun. There are a lot of games that continue until the 40th move, and once the time control is made by both players, they either agree to the draw or someone resigns.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Dave, thanks so much for sharing that link. That was truly awesome... I love the captions after Anand plays e4!!! And I never knew I'd learn the meaning of the latter half of my surname on a page like that!!! I've always wanted to know what Nathan meant and now that I have read it, it makes perfect sense. My dad was named after one of the Indian Gods called Rama and there's a place called Ramanathapuram where Puram means place (like Pur, in North India). It's all falling into place. I'm surprised how easy it was to procure such intimate pictures of Anand's celebratory dinner. Chess players are such simple people.

Do you know what the historical time controls were like in previous Chess Championships?

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

Do you know what the historical time controls were like in previous Chess Championships?
Not sure, but they'd have been something like 2 hours for 40 moves, 1 hour for each subsequent 30 moves. Or 2.5 hours for 45 moves, etc.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Ah ok, so not too different from the ones used in this Championship. That's good to know.