Vishy Anand's full Video Interview on Playchess

A few days ago Vishy Anand was interviewed on Playchess after his successful retention of World Chess Title in Sofia against Veselin Topalov. Short transcripts of the interview was published by Chessbase in two parts which you can read here & here.

The team of World Championship challenger Veselin Topalov reportedly spent a large sum of money to secure a 112 core computer cluster running at mind boggling speed. "How did the reigning champion counter this awesome hardware advantage," when asked Anand answered this question in a candid and very detailed interview broadcast Playchess. He used a human cluster!

We now bring you whole interview in video format which is only available to premium members on Playchess.

Enjoy !!!

Vishy Anand Interview on Playchess Part 1 from David.

Vishy Anand Interview on Playchess Part 1

Vishy Anand Interview on Playchess Part 2 from David.

Vishy Anand Interview on Playchess Part 2

Vishy Anand Interview on Playchess Part 3 from David.

Vishy Anand Interview on Playchess Part 3

Following are the download links for the videos.



| Part 1 of 3 | Part 2 of 3 |  Part 3 of 3 |

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

Topalov Interviewed after his WCC debacle

The interview with former World Champion Veselin Topalov was provided by the head of the Anand-Topalov World Championship match press office, Mr. Boyko Hristov.

- Grandmaster Topalov, regardless of the outcome, during the match between you and Viswanathan Anand we watched your dominance in the openings when you played with the white pieces. What caused this fact?

- During my preparation for the match, my manager, Silvio Danailov, and I decided to approach something non-standard and to seek additional resources to increase the advantage over my opponent. It turned out that there is such a possibility. We found that in Bulgaria is installed and running one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world - Blue Gene/P of IBM. And because the computers and the chess software are necessary components in the preparation of the modern grandmasters, we decided to use the vast computational power of this machine.

The IBM's Blue Gene/P has 8192 processors and you can imagine how huge the possibilities we are talking about. The problem was the fact that in the world currently there is no chess software whose source code is written to work with such a multiprocessor platform. However, Silvio and I, did not give up and he managed to gather an international team of leading experts who have created a project for a chess program that can use the computing power of this extraordinary supercomputer. And now is the time to express my great thanks to the General Manager of IBM Bulgaria Mr. Alexander Rakov and the IT architect of the company Mr. Yovko Lambrev for the access to the resources of Blue Gene/P they provided to us. They have made enormous efforts that our idea become a reality.

I want to thank the Prime Minister of Bulgaria Mr. Boyko Borisov too, who allowed us the access to the supercomputer, which as you know is state owned. So ultimately, even though I lost the match, I managed to achieve a dominance over Anand in the openings in all games, in which I played with the white pieces. This advantage was demonstrated very clear especially in the first game, when I won fast and with decisive priority.

- What's next for GM Veselin Topalov from now on?

- Short break and chess again. In my closest plans, however, it's included an initiative to increase young people's interest in relation of the high technologies and the artificial intelligence, which will be held under my patronage in cooperation with IBM Bulgaria. I will do it because of my direct experience I know how important computers and high technologies are and will be for our future and the career development of the young people.

In a few days we will announce an essay contest among high school students from Sofia concerning a topic in the field of high technologies. The First five best students will form a representative team which will play a mini chess tournament/three games/against the IBM's supercomputer Blue Gene/P.

After each of the games I'm going to comment on the game and will give my advice to the young players. IBM Bulgaria will arrange for the finalists meetings with its leading experts to get them acquainted with the vast world of high technologies. If all goes as we imagine, the initiative will become annual.

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

Interview with Viswanathan Anand on Playchess Part 2

In the second part of his interview on Playchess.com the old and new World Champion Vishy Anand talks about hardware – we now know that his opponent Veselin Topalov had access to an IBM super-computer with 8792 processors! – and how best to use computers for your preparation. He also compares them to human assistants, of whom Vishy had the very best.

Just before the start of the World Championship match in Sofia Vishy Anand learnt that his opponent, Veselin Topalov, had access to a computer cluster, running the latest Rybka program, which was being held back for exclusive use by the Bulgarians. At the time nobody knew the exact specifications of the cluster. Today we know that Topalov had a seriously powerful set of computers, and in addition access to a Blue Gene/L super-computer that had 8792 processors and could execute around 500 teraFLOPS (one thousand billion floating point operations per second).

Against this frightening hardware superiority, made possible with the assistance of the Bulgarian government, Anand, as he narrates in the first part of the interview, received assistance during the preparation phase and during the match from a "human cluster": his four regular seconds, but in addition also Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik (with a small sparring session with youthful GM Anish Giri). This of course did not eliminate the need for computers, and in part two Anand talks about the use of electronic helpers as opposed to human seconds.

---

Vishy Anand: My human cluster was actually fairly impressive.

Frederic Friedel: “Human cluster" is an interesting expression, because I just found out today that Topalov and his team had a computer cluster with 112 cores. Your computers had eight cores, but then you got a 16-core machine?

We actually started to get a bit worried when we heard about it. We had already figured out some of the stuff – Rustam noses around in forums, so he had some inkling. And then we had some other sources who may wish to be private. Once we found out that he had some super computer, some cluster version of Rybka, something that can scale very well, it was obvious to us why Rybka 4 was being held back. So we had to do something in a hurry. Then the people from Hiarcs got in touch, Harvey Williamson and Mark Uniacke. Harvey had access to a very powerful computer, and he let me have it for the whole match. That helped – at least we could check some of the more critical areas with a really powerful machine for a couple of hours. That improved matters quite a bit. It’s one thing when you have it a couple of months before the match, but at least a lot of the critical areas these guys would check very thoroughly and make sure that I had something to play with.

This is what a computer cluster looks like – with just 52 cores. Topalov's had 112.

Still, we had this idea that maybe we should go off the more critical areas and stop going for positions which can be analysed out of the computer. Which is kind of why we decided to stay away from the Grunfeld for quite a while. I kept expecting Topalov to move along a little bit, but it never happened. I was a little surprised that he kept coming back for the Elista ending. We thought that will all his hardware and stuff he would go to sharper lines. Normally he moves around a lot, but I think maybe he decided that because he had such a big hardware advantage that he might just want to stay around and just overpower us everywhere.

GM Jan Gustafsson and Frederic Friedel during the Playchess interview

After game eight we were sort of in trouble with black, and we had some difficulty to pose problems with white. The Catalan was sort of thinning out and we were wondering how long we could keep going. It had worked brilliantly – we had already got two points. And then the idea came to start playing one-game systems. That led to the b6 Grunfeld, the Nimzo, for which we had done some work before the match. We had also done a bit of work for the English, but less. So that had to be brought up to speed a bit faster. Before the final game we had a rest day, and I thought we have a day and a half, so let’s move to the Queen’s Gambit – I need an opening that is going to give me a good sensible game and not hang by a thread on some surprise weapon here or there. So we went for that and it worked brilliantly. Even if he had got a sensible draw, at least it would have got me to the tiebreaks in reasonable shape.

One question I want to ask you, because you can judge it better than anyone: I have the feeling that if you do too much preparation and your hardware is too powerful, they keep coming to you and saying “Oh, this has been refuted,” and “here we have something new”… I don’t know if that is good for the player himself. What do you think?

It must be good for the player to have good hardware. The problem is that it often doesn’t tell you what you want. You want it to find an improvement for White, and it may choose to find it for Black instead. If you have good hardware the chances are your work will be good and you can be more confident about the work you have. If you are taking risks then you can feel you are going to have a head start. In that sense it is good. But the computer will only tell you what the position justifies. It is also insidious – it can stop you playing your favourite lines because of some obscure problems somewhere. I would say computers are very useful – especially very powerful hardware – but if working with the computer means you stop taking risks it’s of course going to kill you. But on the other hand if it encourages you to take the right kind of risks then so much the better. Managing it is I think very tricky. It is very powerful but it may not tell you what you want.

And compared to analysing with humans like Kasparov and Kramnik…?

With humans it is fantastic, because some of the things they tell you you can almost relate to. You can almost see how it is something you can apply at the board. In the last few days some of the suggestions came from Vlady – very intelligent suggestions, with his explanation of why you should do this or that. Or sometimes Garry will tell you a story about the player, and it is some insight which at a critical moment it may help you to choose between two moves and that can be decisive. So it is a very, very different kind of help. Of course these are some of the greatest players in chess, so you can’t really ask for more.

Fritz 12 does not explain why and tell you stories about players…

The problem with Fritz 12 is that except for when the coach feels like really insulting you it hardly tells you anything. The problem with computers is that they are very unreliable. You are trying to get them to do something for Black and they screw it all up. They never understand what you want.

But you don’t hate computers yet, do you?

Not at all. Computers are such a wonderful invention. They allow you to keep the computer working on something and feel good about watching a movie while you are preparing. It’s a nice way for us to feel like we are working all the time.

We should mention one more great helper you had, which is Skype. Isn’t it amazing how much you used Skype?

Yes. I am still blown away when I get an emoticon from Garry [laughs protractedly]. He turns out to be very sort of cool there.

Now I would like to hand over to Gusti, grandmaster Jan Gustafsson, who is going to ask you about a few of the games...

User Comments:

Paulo Cheroto, Brasil

Anand, the extraordinary. They way this guy talks about people, things and evertyhing... Such a Champion! - in chess, heart, etc. Brings people together. It is so cool that we can get to know a bit more about Anand through this interview (he is discret). My admiration only gets bigger and bigger. Anand, congrats, man!!!

Amit, Kureel, Bangalore, India

I read Anand's interview part 1 and felt very good. It was an amzing piece and I can't already wait for part 2. Thanks for this interview. I have an interesting idea for you. I think, you should also interview Anand's Seconds also (PH, Kasim and others) to look at the whole match from their point of view. What experience they had. What they were thinking during the preparation, the problems they faced, before the match and during the match, what they thought about Topa's preparation and so on.

Saadi Manipal

It is heartening to see a great bunch of sportsmen in the most (fiercely) competitive of games pouring out their creative geniuses...

Greg Koster, Chicago

Wonderful report. Especially appreciated the material about Kramnik's calls to Team Anand.

Jose Tomsig, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

According to today's article: what's going on here? Why all three took Anand's side? Do they hate Topalov? Can you explain?

Julian Wan, Ann Arbor, USA

Thank you for sharing this information! The top players respect Anand's ability – that great players like Kasparov, Carlsen and Kramnik would assist him show that they think he is a worthy champion. I believe it shows that they understand that he is an interesting and unique player – someone who understands chess and plays the game as a very high level. At the end of the day, they all find the game fascinating and so being able to delve into another great player's thinking is hard to resist. The second and probably most interesting observation and one that is more applicable to other walks of life is that they respect him as a person – I get the impression that they like him and appreciate that he isn't someone who has to create conflict to psyche themselves up or just to be contrarian. Chess makes for strange alliances – just look at Kasparov supporting Karpov for the FIDE presidency – but there is something here more than just some shared lack of closeness towards or even dislike of Topalov. I think they really like Anand.

K. Srinath, Pune, India

Are you aware of any other World Chess Championship in which a player was assisted by such an elite group? In fact, can you imagine Kasparov "getting in touch" with anyone else? And Kramnik, and Carlsen!! OMG. Can't help but think that Anand's being such a nice (any other adjective falls short as well) person automatically makes all this happen. It is funny to think people were scared that Anand played in Bulgaria; more important was the fact that he was on Earth, where even his keenest rivals root for (and help!!) him. He's "home" wherever he goes because people everywhere love him.

Benoit Chamuleau, Istanbul

This interview is just another proof of what a class player and human Anand is: who else manages to make the world's cream of chess to root for him?

Neeraj Sharma, Swansea, UK
Hi everyone in Chessbase! The first thing I did halfway through reading your first article on Anand's seconds is to check the calendar. Thank God it was not the 1st of April, because it could have easily been your yearly joke! Unbelievable! I nearly fell off my chair! The camaraderie amongst the chess players definitely seems to have gone up a level, and how nice to see a nice human being like Anand helping this process. I don't think he had to do anything out of the ordinary – just be himself in all situations, and everyone seems to like him for that. Anand's human cluster was clearly the cream of modern day chess, and that undid the hardware advantage which Topo had. With all this happening if God was wondering upstairs, "which side do I put my money on?" he opted for Anand as it was a safer to go with the Ks and Carlsen, I guess! Hence the luck factor went in Anand's favour!

Over the years I had been a great fan of Anand's interviews, and I have a huge collection of them. I think the best people to interview him are Fred and Arvind Aaron, followed by Rakesh Rao (for the gallery). It was really a treat to read the interview! Thanks once again. I could not make to Sofia this year but I will definitely be around in London in 2012, waving a big Indian flag!

Source : Chessbase

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

Interview with Viswanathan Anand on Playchess Part 1

The team of World Championship challenger Veselin Topalov reportedly spent a large sum of money to secure a 112 core computer cluster running at mind boggling speed. "How did the reigning champion counter this awesome hardware advantage," we asked. Anand answered this question in a candid and very detailed interview broadcast on Monday Playchess. He used a human cluster!

The interview with World Champion Vishy Anand was broadcast on Monday at 17:00h on the chess server Playchess, where premium users could watch it free of charge.

Gustafsson, Friedel talking by phone with Vishy Anand

Frederic Friedel and GM Jan Gustafsson were in the ChessBase studio, Anand was in his home in Spain, and the discussions were conducted by phone. In the first part Friedel quizzed his old friend – Anand mentioned that they have known each other for 23 years – on the help he had received when defending his title against Challenger Veselin Topalov in Sofia. The names that were revealed had been quite naturally kept a close secret before and during the match, so what you are about to read is new and exclusive. A part of the

Frederic Friedel: Vishy, you are back home now, safe and sound, you won the world championship. A first stupid question: how do you feel?

Viswanathan Anand: It’s surreal. Obviously I feel happy, but if you read the news, that the volcano is going off again, that kind of feels bizarre. Other than that I feel fine, I’m even starting to sleep better – a couple of days after the match I’d keep waking up at seven, but now it’s okay.

How’s your wife, by the way. She suffered probably more than you?

Yes, she was trying to keep most of the details from us, during the trip, but of course sitting in the same van with two mobile phones it is almost impossible to do that. By the last day it wasn’t clear who was suffering more, her or me. It’s tough – at least the seconds get to stop seeing me for a while, but when I woke up I was really tense and she could see that and it affected her as well.

I would like to ask you a few things about your seconds and your preparation. Tell us how it worked before the match started. You had the same team as the last time?

Yes, basically the same four players: Kasimdzhanov, Nielsen, Wojtaszek and Ganguly. We did some training camps last year, in September and October, very preliminary stuff, because we did not know when the match would be. Then a bit again in February and March, and then, as you know, it started to get a bit interesting. Some other seconds got in touch…

Before we come to that, do these four seconds have special tasks, for example is one a specialist in certain areas?

The Anand Team in Sofia: standing in the front row are GM Peter Heine Nielsen, Eric van Reem, GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Hans Walter Schmitt, Vishy Anand, Aruna Anand, GM Surya Ganguly, GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek. In the second row on the left: Christian Bossert, Mark Lefler. All of the GM seconds worked with Anand in his 2008 match against Vladimir Kramnik.

I think in the beginning we tried all this, before Bonn, to sit and map out everyone’s function and what everyone does best. But now I think that everyone gives every problem to everyone, so that as many eyes go over it as possible. Of course there are things that people tend to do well. Generally Heine’s job is to keep track of everyone else – this was done maybe because I knew he was the only guy who wouldn’t say no, so I dumped that one on him. The others, well every once in a while Rustam – and this is, how should I put it, a task he has taken upon himself – he will decide that he has to wreck the preparation. He’ll say “I don’t like the look of it.” Then he’ll go off for a while and come back and say: “Okay, we have identified some problems, so I feel much better.”´Radek we tease that he can never stop cleaning something. He’ll check something, but to an absurd degree. Surya does a version of that as well, but you can always sort of distract him.

Who is the computer person there?

Well, all of us are. Peter, I guess, does a bit more than the others. His screen just looks like a dashboard or a pilot’s cockpit. But we are all heavily computer dependent.

Okay, these were you usual seconds, the usual suspects. But you had some other people working with you in the phase before the match started.

This is a small section of the interview you can watch and hear on YouTube or this video stream.

Well, by December it was clear that Magnus was going to be number one in the world, and I wasn’t really sure that I should expect his help again – he had already helped me before Bonn and Mexico. I assumed he was not going to get in touch. But then we had this funny situation in India when some journalist asked me who are your seconds. I said that is a secret, but I can tell you one name: it is Nielsen. Of course he published the next day that this one name was Carlsen. I guess he heard “sen” and he heard “second”, he went home and googled *.sen and Carlsen came up. It was funny that Carlsen was outed before he was actually in the team.

World number one Magnus Carlsen, who helped Anand before the match

But sometime in March he got in touch with us, and said that he would be happy to help for a couple of days. We decided he would come after his tournament in Nice. Basically I had him as a sparring partner. We did check some openings together, but the basic idea was that I would get to play a lot with him. Very few people can simulate a real tournament situation like Magnus can. We played a lot of blitz, and I felt good, because I was able to test a lot of areas I was unfamiliar with before. With Magnus you can test almost any position, because he can play almost any position, and play it reasonably well. In that sense his practical skills are very helpful.

I thought the nicest bit was the last day, when we finished, had a nice dinner, and I told him I will take you to the airport tomorrow when you wake up. At some point he started making this very un-Carlsen-like speech, something like “I had a wonderful time, I really enjoyed working with you, I’m sure you will play well, and good luck and everything,” and then he finished with “or shall we skip all this crap.” I said yes, no problem. I thought that was cute. He stayed in touch a little bit – basically he is always in touch with PH. I owe him a bit. As I said he came for a couple of days before Mexico and Bonn. I think if he qualifies for the next final he should come and train me for that as well.

You know it is possible that he will qualify, and then…?

Well, we are in uncharted territory here. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But I thought that farewell was really cute.

That was Magnus. Did you have anyone else?

Another component of Anand's "human cluster": 13th World Champion Garry Kasparov

The next person who got in touch – and the nice thing is that anyone who wants to get in touch calls you, so you can stop looking so surprised there – was Garry. Garry got in touch and said he wanted to help a little bit. I sent him some details about what we were planning to play…

You sent him your preparation?? That shows a lot of trust.

Yes. I sent him some questions and he said he would check them against his own notes and let me know if it was okay. Heine helped me with a list of questions. I can see Jan [Gustafsson] smiling already – Heine immediately came up with five hundred questions, and we had to whittle them down a little bit…

Garry told me it was 21 or 31 questions.

Yes, PH was really disciplined in the end. We sent him a bunch of questions, and a couple of days later we went through it over Skype.

So you were talking to him on Skype?

I was talking to him, indeed. Two years ago if you had told me that one day Garry and me would be exchanging emoticons on Skype I would (laughs). But you tell the young people of today and they won’t believe you…

That's from Monty Python!

So he was sending me smilies and so on, and it was quite cute.

He was also sending them to your wife, who was a little bit scared…

Kasparov with Aruna and Vishy Anand in Zurich last year

Yes, I was bouncing between my wife’s accounts and my account, and so he was sending her smilies as well. But the nice thing about Garry was I could feel him sitting opposite me over a board again. Every time he saw something in my repertoire – I mean he has even learnt to be a bit diplomatic. There were some things where he didn’t know what to say, he looked at some of the positions we had planned and some of the lines to justify it, and he started breathing heavily, you could hear him on the loudspeaker. I could just feel Garry sitting there, huffing and puffing a bit again. But it was very nice. There were many things he confirmed – he for instance said go ahead with the Catalan, things like that. It gives a bit of confidence. And definitely Garry is someone who had good insight into his opponents. That was very helpful.

He was so into this. He would call before every game, after every important move, he’d call and tell me that he had just spoken to you – like the biggest fan you’ve ever had.

Garry did get in touch a couple of times during the match. He was almost in training mode. After game eight he gave me a lecture on opposite coloured bishop endings, and after game nine as well. Very, very sweet of him, and I really appreciate that.

Finally – and I don’t know whether it was my openings which did it, because game two was a Catalan, game three was the Elista ending, game four was a Catalan, he couldn’t contain himself anymore, so Vlady called you, and you put us both in touch…

That was funny. I think it was after game three: Vladimir called me after midnight and started lecturing me, very intensely, what you should be doing, what you shouldn’t be doing, you shouldn’t play this, okay you got away with it once, but don’t do it again, the endgame is terrible. He was dictating stuff to me. So I said why don’t you talk to him? He’s in Baku and you are in Sofia. It’s the wonder of Skype: I just put you guys together. I think we did this two days later, because we decided not to confront you early in the morning just before you played a game. Afterwards you spoke to him a number of times?

Yes. Vlady was actually incredibly helpful. I think he really got into it. The first day he said the only game I didn’t play his openings I was blown away…

That was the first game?

…right, the first game, the Grunfeld, and that should be a lesson to me. I explained it to him, that it was, as most people guessed, simply a lapse of memory, and that Kf7 was supposed to come a move later. Still, probably he has a point. His openings are ridiculously good, so maybe it is good to stick to them.

So he was sharing his knowledge with you?

Very much so. He actually started participating actively. He was also very understanding – he knew I would go to sleep once in a while, so he was happily speaking to the other team members as well, especially Rustam. They started getting in touch with each other and he gave us quite a few heavy-duty ideas, so that was nice. Actually he got in touch consistently over the next few days, and I cannot think of anyone who was more relieved than him when I stopped playing the Elista ending. He said “it’s an awful ending, why do you keep defending it every day?” I said well, when you played it, it looked cast-iron. Maybe that is like all his stuff. Vlady’s humour is the trickiest to explain. He has this dry humour. After one of the white games of which I was particularly proud I came back and found a Skype message from Vlady saying “Ah, so you managed to equalise with white!” Basically you get this kind of dry wit from him. It’s quite uplifting. His help was actually priceless.

Anish Giri on his way to train with Anand in March 2010

That pretty much wraps up the list of seconds.

What about the baby grandmaster?

So you are going to out me on him as well? Okay. Anish also did a couple of days of training with me. It was very similar to what I was doing with Magnus – I got to test a lot of things. There were a lot of areas I had no practical experience with, like the Catalan which I was playing almost the first time, the Elista ending and so on. Anish also sat and went through that.

Do you know, on the evening before the last game he called me and said “I’ve been thinking for ten whole minutes and now I know what he’s going to play: the Queen’s Gambit Declined, Lasker Variation!” Then he squealed on the server when it happened: “I got it right!” So you had a very nice crowd around you?

Yes, my human cluster was actually fairly impressive.

Part two of this interview will appear shortly

Source : Chessbase

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

We fought all the odds and won: Aruna Anand

One of the things Anand is always criticised about is the lack of mental toughness and I think he has given a fitting reply. Playing in your opponent's home turf against everyone's advice, embarking on a 40 hour road journey which I think no world champion would have ever done in recent times and most importantly holding onto his nerves and game in the 12th game.

He played a wonderful game and hats off to him! Up to the first half the dynamics were loaded in favour of Anand and then they switched to Topalov but Anand rose to every kind of challenge, kept his nerves in check and kept fighting at all levels.

Volcano worry

The volcano (Volcanic Ash from Iceland) did shake our entire schedule, so unusual and felt so helpless. Bringing Anand and all the boys by bus was a tough challenge. It was difficult to talk over the phone through the entire 40 hours as every conversation could be listened by everyone. And after reaching Sofia, even a little bit of empathy from the organisers would have made us feel better but we had to fight even for a postponement. At every stage I was feeling that the dice was heavily loaded against us. We however kept Anand out of everything and saw to it the atmosphere was conducive for him to play good chess.

As told to Manisha Mohite

Source: MiD Day 

 

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

Viswanathan Anand's Interview with MiD Day after retaining World Title

Viswanathan Anand talks to MiD DAY about the toughest match of his life, the challenges leading up to the championship and how he celebrated

Viswanathan Anand won his first World Chess Championship title when it was jointly held in his home country and Iran in 2000 in a knock-out format. Then in Mexico, 2007 in a tournament format before retaining his crown in Bonn, Germany in 2008. Yesterday, he won another world championship in his opponent, Veselin Topalov's home country, Bulgaria.

Doubtless, India's pride and joy has made some historic and geographical moves apart from his movements on the chess board.

Anand spoke to MiD-DAY about the magnitude of his challenge as well as on and off board happenings in Sofia.

Excerpts from a chat:

Would you say 'mission accomplished'?

It's mission accomplished. I am so exhausted that I am ready to crash out! It has been the toughest match of my life. Here was a situation where till the last day, there was no clarity ¦ both of us had a chance. As the winner would be the champion, the tension was too much in the last game. Moreover, most players and friends were not happy with our decision to play in Topalov's home country. The match kept bouncing from us to him and somehow it was always hectic.

Is it yet to sink in?

The feeling is yet to sink in and I think it is going to be couple of days before I come back to reality. But when I wake up tomorrow, there might be a sense of loss since we were cooped up in this hotel and it was almost like the 'Big Brother' House. The team lived here, ate here, prepared here and slept here. Somehow, we will miss all of them.

How did you prepare for the final game?

I was mentally prepared to go into the tie-break and fight it out there. In all probability I had expected to get the draw. There was no point in pondering about what could happen. Just worked hard yesterday which was a rest day. The entire team was in good spirits and highly motivated.

Was it tougher than the battle against Vladimir Kramnik?

I think this was tougher in the sense there was trouble from the word go, long journey by road for 40 hours, then fight on a different level for postponement of the Match. In this modern age, you don't think that a volcano is going to disrupt your best-laid plans. Thankfully, I was distanced from all this as Aruna took care of all these details. In hindsight, the benefit of this journey was that the team jelled together. Also, there was another tough element ” Topalov never gave up and continued to fight till the very end. There were no short-cuts here.

You suffered a shocking loss in the first game...

It was so fast and quick that it took a long time for realisation to sink in. But there is no point in brooding over it with the whole match ahead of you. You have to stop thinking about it and keep going forward. Thankfully I was able to get my rhythm back the next day.

Then you won the second and fourth game ¦

It was nice to strike back immediately after the loss on first day. Incidentally, the preparation for Game Four was done on the bus journey from Frankurt to Sofia. So the travelling time was well spent.

Things kept bouncing...

The match did keep bouncing. Actually switching Openings with Black which on hindsight looks like a good trick as it did not allow Topalov to really settle down and kept him guessing.

How did you celebrate?

The entire team went for a celebratory dinner to an Indian restaurant.

Source : MiD Day

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

My toughest game, says world champ Anand

Moments after retaining the World Chess Championship title, Vishwanathan Anand told CNN-IBN that the 12th and the final game against Bulgarian Veseline Topalov was the toughest ever in his career.

"It's certainly the toughest match I have ever played. I certainly can't recall any other experience like this. Even during the course of the tournament, it wasn't that any one player was dominating. I knew it would eventually come down to the question of whose nerves held up and I am relieved that it was me," he said.

"I wasn't thinking of records, I was more keen on just staying alive. Topalov is an incredibly tough opponent and to have prevailed is definitely nice. This match took a couple of years out of my life.

"Preparing for a world championship is all about choosing the right direction. Sometimes, you are spot on but most of the times, it doesn't go that well and then you have to adapt and work during the match and change course.

"He managed to surprise me by his attitude towards this match. Earlier, he was hit and run, but this time he stood his ground and kept playing the same openings. Luckily we coped.

"His strategy for the game was to play every game till there was only king left or till a draw looked like the only result possible. Somehow, this puts a lot of pressure. I was putting 4-5 hours every day and on top of that there was the pressure of doing the openings. The flipside is that he puts a lot of pressure on himself as well, so I knew the right approach," he added.

Source : IBN

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

Can't think of a better win than this: Viswanathan Anand | Interview with Anand after his WCC 2010 win

Moments after beating Bulgarian grandmaster Veselin Topalov with black pieces in the twelfth and final game of the Chess World Championship in Sofia to retain his title of world champion, Viswanathan Anand told DNA in a telephone interview that it was the toughest match of his career. Excerpts:

What’s the first reaction?

Basically I’m relieved. It was the toughest match of my life. He is a tough opponent. Till today, every single result was possible. So it is a great feeling.

What exactly did the trick? There were no d4-like surprises from you this time.

To be honest, he surprised us with his preparation. He was different from his earlier games. His preparation was very good and deep. My team had worked and later they had to rework their strategy. It was hard work in every single game.

How do you analyse the championship as a whole?

It was a topsy-turvy match. It could have gone either way. I’m happy that I emerged on the winning side. Both of us worked hard and we had to be on our toes every time. But we knew it would be very close. It eventually was very close.

Is it the biggest career win?

At the moment, it seems so. I have had many great results but at this moment I cannot think of any other game that can be better than this. I will think over it once it sinks in.

Topalov is known to be a great fighter and a difficult opponent. In that sense, is it the most difficult win?

I would say it is a very crucial win. It came my way and I’m very happy about it.

Explain the mood and preparation for the last game...

Well, it is a funny feeling. We knew we would either be incredibly happy or incredibly sad. But we were prepared for every eventuality. I was not sure if the match will end today, but after he played the fxe4 move, I knew that the match could end today. I must admit, it gave me a good opening. If you say it was a coup, so be it. I can say I’m happy.

Do you think playing at home, Topalov was under more pressure than you?

I don’t think it is such a big factor. I’m not sure any of us were influenced by such external issues. We are used to it.

You had a bad start to the championship... How did you bounce back?

Yes, it was a bad start, but in a match of such enormity and importance, we had to take our chances.

Many said you made a lot of mistakes and your games swung from sublime to silly...

It was bound to happen. In such long games, both had chances and misses. He made a lot of mistakes and so did I. But I knew mistakes would happen. In the end, it was a hard-fought championship and a hard-fought win.

Is it true that you wanted to avoid the tie-breaker because your record in tie-breaks is not so good in the World Championship?

I cannot say that. I was prepared for every eventuality. If it had to be stretched, the tie-breaks, so be it. I cannot have a choice that I would avoid it. But it is a great relief that the match ended today.

Source : DNA

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

Viswanathan Anand: The King of Chess

NEW DELHI: After playing exhaustive chess for over three decades, Viswanathan Anand has assured himself a place among all time greats as he retained the World Champion title with consummate ease against Veselin Topalov in his own den in Sofia, Bulgaria on Tuesday. 

With the win Anand has accomplished something which no other chess great, not even Garry Kasparov has done.

He has asserted his supremacy in the world by winning the title in every possible format of tournament including winning the world chess title three times in a row and against various opponents including two different ones in match format.

He has won in knock-out, round-robin and two matchplay formats to give an apt answer his critics that he cant stand the test of time.

Anand now has to his credit a rare combination of the consecutive three World Champion title and four in all including the knockout format that he won in 2000.

Anand started playing chess at the age of six and won his first national title in the sub-junior tournament with a record cent per cent score of 9/9 points in 1983-84. And there was no looking back since then.

As his success juggernaut was set rolling, he was tied for second place and awarded the bronze medal in the World sub-junior Championship in 1984 and became the Asian Junior (under 19) Champion in 1983-84.

He also became the International Master at 15, the youngest Asian to achieve this distinction. He was crowned the youngest national champion at the age of 16 in 1986 and in 1987, he became the first Asian to win the World Junior Championship when it was held at Baggio city in Philippines.

It was coincidental that Anand spend some time in Philippines as a young child when his father was there.

He earned the Grandmaster title in 1987 only making two GM norms in quick time in India itself. The country had found its first son in chess. The first Grandmaster in 700 millions at that time.

The Indian chess ace, popular as 'Tiger from Madras', won the strongest tournament at that time, The "Reggio Emilia" in Italy in 1991 ahead of Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov.

His spectacular profile kept growing as he became the first Asian to play the World Championship and attained the World No. 2 position in the PCA Ranking list in 1995.

Anand won his first Linares title, the strongest tournament ever in the history of chess, in 1998 and in the same year he climbed up to the World number two rankings. He has the unbeaten record of claiming the prestigious Corus chess tournament for five times.

He reached pinnacle of his career when he became the 15th World Champion in 2000 after defeating Alexey Shirov in Teheran and ending Russian dominance over the game.

Anand has also won the first and second FIDE World Cups, which is a mind-boggling series of knock-out tournaments, in 2000 and 2002.

Famous for his lightening speed while making his moves, Anand has also established himself as the master of rapid chess with great victories at the Melody Amber tournament.

His other great victories have come at Dortmund, Mainz, Wijk Aan Zee, Leon and Corsica Masters. At Mainz his record is just perfect 10 after he won the 10th title there in August in the main event of the chess Classics.

Anand also has the distinction of playing six computers simultaneously and win (4-2) at an exhibition at the Aegon Man vs Computers chess event.

Anand, who returned to play in the chess Olympiad after a gap of 12 years in 2004, captained an all-Grandmaster Indian team and emerged as the top scorer in the event. The team got its best-ever sixth finishing.

He has been awarded many prestigious titles like Chess Oscars for three times on the trot. He is the only non-Russian other than Bobby Fischer to win the award after the tradition was reinstated.

He has also been bestowed with the inaugural Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India's highest sporting honour, in 1991, besides the Arjuna Award, the Padmashri (the youngest recipient of the title), Padma Bhushan, the Soviet Land Nehru award, the BPL Achievers of the World, Sportstar, Sportsworld "Sportsman of the year 1995" Award.

Anand, who shifted to Spain in -- for better opportunities, has received the 'Jameo de Oro' the countries highest civilian award given to a foreigner.

Anand has written a book 'My best Games of Chess' which has been released in English and German.

Having revolutionised the chess in India, the 40-year-old Anand, who holds a degree in commerce, promotes chess through the NIIT, of which he is the brand ambassador.

Some of the major achievements of Anand: World Championships (2000, 2007, 2008 and now); Corus Super GM Turnament at Wijk Aan Zee (1989, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2006) Dortmund (1996, 2000, 2004); Corsica Masters (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004); Chess Classic of Mainz (2000, 2001 2002 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006); World Cup (2000, 2002); Melody Amber tournament (1994, 1997, 2003, 2007); Reggio Emilia (1991) Linares (1998, 2007) The credit Suisse Masters (1997) Dos Heramnas (1997).

Source : Times of India

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

Vishy Anand remains the King of 64 squares

In a tremendous clutch performance Anand took charge with black against a dithering Topalov and whipped up a crushing attack with remarkable speed. The pretty retreat 34..Qe8! was the final nail in the Bulgarian's coffin. Well, not quite. That's would have made a tidy story, but in fact it was still quite sharp and Anand wisely took his time to work things out while Topalov maintained desperate hope of reaching an endgame like R+N vs Q. He found every desperate chance but there just wasn't as much fight in the white position as there was in Topalov. He even got his endgame after the time control, but with an open king it was hopeless. Anand maneuvered his queen precisely and Topalov eventually resigned game and match after move 56. Anand renews his title and takes home 1,200,000 euros, minus the 20% FIDE tax they charge for not getting in the way. Topalov gets 800,000.

What a game, what a match, what a world champion, Vishy Anand!

It certainly wasn't easy. Anand's gaff in the first game started him off with a loss and in need of an alternative defense to Topalov's 1.d4. The sturdy Slav came to the rescue, but the long grinds he had to defend cost him on the endurance side of the equation even though he quickly took the lead with wins in games two and four. Topalov's tremendous fighting qualities allowed him to level the score after being outplayed badly in two consecutive Catalans. Anand's strategic decision to slowball Topalov, playing like Kramnik with slow positional whites and, after the Grunfeld went into the shop, ugly passive blacks, paid dividends early. It clearly wasn't as easy for Anand to do as for Kramnik, however, and he got into trouble in several long defenses, including the loss in game eight.

Against Kramnik in 2008 Anand forced very sharp play whenever possible and was a very successful fire to Kramnik's ice. In Sofia the Indian chameleon went the opposite way, illustrating why Topalov doesn't have very good results against the Catalan. Anand did look very uncomfortable on the black side of those ugly queenless Slavs, however, and Topalov is a formidable grinder. The only real problem with the match, and right about now I'm sure at least one person (Topalov) would agree, is that it needed to be around six games longer. Topalov proved himself worthy of everything but the title in the end. And though it was by the narrowest of margins, Anand showed he's a cut above the rest even at 40. Or, as a fellow 1969'er, especially at 40.

In today's final game, Anand went with the ultra-solid Lasker QGD, which is about as close to the Petroff in spirit as things get against 1.d4. A slight exaggeration, but let's just say Anand was happy to take a draw and head into rapid tiebreaks on Thursday. Topalov had other plans, of course, and went about trying to stir up trouble. This he managed to do, although they did follow book for nearly 20 moves. Black had an isolated c-pawn, but Anand defended actively and the pawn mostly served to distract Topalov enough that he forgot about his own weaknesses. Anand did not. With several pieces offsides, Topalov's king came under fire after he played not the first over-committal pawn pushes of the match. The end couldn't come quickly enough for Anand's cheering section in the comments -- 36..Qd8+ was the preferred computer execution -- with nearly 25 minutes on both clocks at that point there was little doubt that it was a case of the white king being dead and long live Anand the king. Anand didn't even rush in the endgame, playing zugzwang games with his queen instead of grabbing the b-pawn. It was almost like he was enjoying himself, but I'm sure he just wanted to make absolutely sure there were no miracle perpetuals.

The official site has been great getting the moves out without crashing and the compliments have been high on the webcam as well. Kudos to the organizers. One blackout, no shenanigans, no rapid tiebreaks. Topalov lands in the group of eight candidates along with Aronian, Kamsky, Gelfand, Kramnik, Carlsen, the organizer wildcard, and the Grand Prix second-place finisher, who will be known in a dozen days in Astrakhan.

Source : Daily Dirt Chess Blog

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More

Vishy Anand defends World Chess Championship Title

LOCKED IN COMBAT: Viswanathan Anand of India and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria contemplating their moves during their 12th and final game in the FIDE World Chess Championship in Sofia on Tuesday. The Indian, playing with black, defeated the Bulgarian and retained the title.

World champion Viswanathan Anand on Tuesday retained the World Chess Championship title by wrapping up the final game against Veselin Topalov of Russia here.

Anand achieved an improbable win playing with black in the final game to retain the world title by 6.5-5.5 margin after the end of the 12th and final game here.

Experts over the world had predicted that Topalov, at his worst, will draw the last game under normal time control and then the match will be headed in to the rapid tiebreaker.

However, it was not to be as Topalov, trying to look for complications, went haywire in a slightly difficult position and could not recover as Anand kept dealing one lethal blow after another to notch up his fourth world title in 11 years to remain the undisputed king of the game once again.

Anand, thus became the first official world champion in recent history to win two back-to-back matches in world championships against different opponents.

Vladimir Kramnik can also lay his claims for that but for the fact that the match he won against Garry Kasparov in 2000 was not played under the official FIDE flag.

If the last game was any indication, Anand had indeed reserved his best as he knew Topalov will go all out for a win.

The reason for Topalov’s unwarranted aggression was probably based on the fact that Anand is by far regarded as the best rapid chess player in history and Topalov does not have any great reputation in the faster version of the game.

Naturally, the Bulgarian wanted to avoid the tiebreaker.

Anand came up with another opening surprise as he went back to the basics. The Queen’s Gambit declined as black has a solid reputation and it stood up for Anand’s quest as the Indian ace went for the rock-solid Lasker variation.

Topalov, tried to create complications earlier but when the game headed towards a perfect balance, the Bulgarian lost his cool. The decisive moment of the game came on the 32nd move when Topalov simply lost his cool and blundered.

Source : The Hindu

If you liked the article kindly Digg it, Stumble it, Add to Technorati, bookmark it and please consider Subscribing by Email  and have articles delivered right to your inbox! OR Subscribe to Attack the King Feed in a Feed Reader of your choice OR Subscribe to SMS Alerts & Get Article Headlines & Updates delivered to your Mobile Phone for free.

Read More