Reaction to Anand’s victory

After a lean few years and a painful defeat against Magnus Carlsen few were predicting great things from former World Champion Viswanathan Anand in the Candidates. Instead the 44-year-old led from start to finish, winning with the same ease with which he first won the undisputed World Championship in a similar tournament back in Mexico in 2007. We’ve gathered together some of the first reactions to his victory, including the views of fellow grandmasters, his wife Aruna and Vishy himself.

1. Russian grandmaster and journalist Dmitry Kryakvin compared the upcoming Carlsen-Anand rematch to the sixth World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik’s successful rematch against the young Mikhail Tal when he was pushing fifty:

As part of my job I often work with some chess periodicals and archives and the situation with Vishy winning somehow reminds me of the situation before the Tal-Botvinnik rematch. If you open up the periodicals of those years you can read a lot of uncomplimentary words about the “Patriarch”. What’s he doing at such an age? And above all, why? But we all know now how things ended up. Besides, Anand, in contrast to Mikhail the Sixth, earned the right for a rematch with Carlsen absolutely fairly and who knows how the rematch will end if the Norwegian rests on his laurels.

2. Abhijeet Gupta:

This match will definitely be different, that is for sure. I cannot remember the last time Anand won a top tournament in such a dominating fashion. And another thing to remember is that he has already seen the worst. It cannot get any worse than what happened last time. So he’ll be even more motivated.

3. Vishy's Wife, Aruna: 

That was a very difficult period. It was the lowest point of Anand's career. I have never seen Anand suffer so much. The entire family suffered seeing him suffer so much.

It was not like he talked a lot about the match. He got used to the fact that the title was lost towards the end of the match itself but, of course, he was very disappointed with the result as well as his overall performance.

He was actually well prepared for the Carlsen match but could not get good positions on the board. In Khanty, there was no such thing.

4. Vishy Anand:

How do you feel after a convincing win, in a format that was gruelling and had some of the best players in the world?

It was a sense of relief. I played a lot more freely. I was wanting to play freely in the last couple of years. Somehow it was not happening. All I wanted was to play good chess and have a practical attitude towards the tournament. Very happy and satisfied to have won it.

Many players did not give you a chance, with even our RB Ramesh stating that the scar of the World Championship loss would take a long time to heal. Were you hurt by all this?

I did not pay attention to what people thought about me. I always take opinion from people who I really count upon. The loss in Chennai was painful. I was not the same player that I really was. People will talk about the loss for years to come. But I kind of moved on and did not think about it coming into the Candidates Tournament.

What was the secret behind silencing the critics? Was it will power, pride?

I am not the kind of person who goes about silencing the critics. I just wanted to play good chess. Touch wood.

Do you cherish this win more as it has come at a time when critics doubted your ability to bounce back?

I think the win is similar to the win in Mexico in the World Championship in 2007. I think my style of play here was similar to that one. It is an important win in the sense that it came at a time when people had practically written me off.

How does it feel to take on Carlsen again?

I am not thinking about Carlsen right now. I want to savour the moment and enjoy the win.

FIDE has selected the venue for 2014 Carlsen - Anand World Championship match

Breaking News:

The 2014 World Chess Championship match between chess phenom, model, and reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway) and 5-time World Champion Vishy Anand (India), will take place at the Kingdom of Genovia. It will be held from 5 November to 25 November 2014, under the auspices of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). 

The Kingdom of Genovia will provide 10 million euros for this highly anticipated match, with 2/3 for the winner, and 1/3 for the loser, minus 20% fees to FIDE. This will be the largest prizes in chess history.

In a written statement, obtained exclusively by CDN, Princess Mia of Genovia said the following:

"Genovia is excited to host such a prestigious event. I am pleased that FIDE has accepted my bid. With the latest resurgence from 5-time World Champion Anand at the Candidates Tournament, chess fans from around the world will be in for a real treat."

The players will be playing their 12-game match in the Royal Palace. The teams of seconds for Carlsen and Anand will be announced by November 1. Legendary former World Champion Boris Spassky, and former World Championship Challenger Viktor Korchnoi, have been selected by FIDE to provide exciting LIVE commentary.

Anand Confirms his Triumph Leaving his Rivals Searching for Answers

The final day saw the coronation of Viswanathan Anand as the winner of the Candidates tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk and a surprise second placed finisher in Sergey Karjakin who came right from the basement to almost topple him but still finish in a creditable second place. Anand goes on to play Magnus Carlsen for the title in what is scheduled to be a match in November. For me Anand showed great ring craft throughout, his career has been filled with such pressurised tournaments and he used that experience fully to avoid the melt downs that happened to almost all his rivals. He was only in trouble against Karjakin in round 13 which was a game that started with him being the one with it all to lose, later when defending the pressure also settled on Karjakin who suddenly had chances to win the event himself. Karjakin eventually allowed a forced draw when he thought it was a winning try. If Anand maintains this return to form he should be in better shape than in India to challenge Carlsen. Whether that will be enough is another question.

Anand admitted that he wasn't really in the mood to play having achieved victory but that he didn't want to finish with the bitter taste of defeat in the final round. His opponent Peter Svidler also seemed happy to draw the line under an event which hadn't gone his way. The played a Ruy Lopez Marshall where both players seemed to know it should finish in a draw. "basically the most prevalent feeling right now is a feeling of a huge wasted opportunity because I think I played, at least in the first half, very interesting chess and I had chances in almost every game and I think a lot of what went wrong in this tournament were what you would maybe call unforced errors"... I kept on making strange mistakes in situations where I shouldn't have and because of that a tournament that could have been very interesting from my point of view finished a minor disaster." was Svidler's summation of his tournament.

Vladimir Kramnik finished the event with a short accurate draw against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Most of the interest was in his confirmation of the story that it was he who finally persuaded Anand to play "We really spoke about it in London and Vishy was unsure by that time. I advised him to participate because I really thought he had a chance and I just told him so.... Also I think he has all chances to win the match against Carlsen. I had similar crises, so I know what was happening inside him."

Veselin Topalov finished the event with a draw against Dmitry Andreikin. Topalov said "It could have been worse but in general I think except Anand and Dmitry I don't think anyone can be very happy with his play. I mean all the others are more or less losers [before Karjakin's win] none of us got even close to threaten Anand in fact that's the whole tournament you know."

The final game of the day saw a clearly dispirited Levon Aronian go down to another loss and finish near the tail-end of the field. He had a good position out of his unusual opening but his heart really wasn't in it and he "missed everything" in time trouble and ended up with a miserable position and was ground down after many hours. His opponent Sergey Karjakin was very pleased with his +3 in the second half and he could have won the event had he converted the day before (although no doubt today's game would have been completely different too). "Yeah I didn't really play well, so." Aronian.

FIDE Candidates Tournament 2014

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand won the 2014 FIDE Candidates Chess tournament after settling for a draw with Sergey Karjakin of Russia in the 13th and penultimate round on Saturday.

Anand has an unassailable 1.5 point lead with one more round to play in the tournament. It was a marathon against Karjakin that lasted more than five-and-a-half hours.

With this victory, Anand wins the right to challenge World Champion Magnus Carlsen in November. Carlsen had dethroned Anand in the World Championship match in Chennai in 2013.

The draw helped Anand reach eight points and he benefitted from the biggest upset in the tournament when top seed Levon Aronian of Armenia lost to lowest ranked Dmitry Andreikin of Russia.

On a day that saw Vladimir Kramnik avenging his earlier loss in the tournament against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan played out a draw with Russian Peter Svidler to seal the fate in Anand's favour irrespective of the results on Sunday.

With Anand on eight points, Karjakin, Kramnik, Mamedyarov, Andreikin and Aronian are now 6.5 points each. Peter Svidler stand seventh on six points while Topalov reamined on 5.5 to fill the last place.

In the last round Anand meets Svidler and the draw could be a likely result as the Indian will play with white pieces.

In the game against Karjakin, Anand equalised quite easily with the Queen's gambit declined and had no troubles whatsoever in finding a thematic pawn sacrifice that made his position easier to play.

However, while trying to work out the right path, Anand erred slightly and faced a difficult but possible defense when he parted with two pieces for Karjakin's rook.

The ensuing endgame was easier for Karjakin and the defense was not easy, yet Anand kept finding the right moves and obtained a passed pawn on the king side that proved vital.

Karjakin was aware at this point that the fight was over but he played on till 91 moves before signing the peace treaty.

The tournament victory gives Anand winner's cheque of 135000 Euros (a little over Rs 1 crore) and the right to a match against Magnus Carlsen of Norway who dethroned the Indian champion at Chennai in November last. This rematch will take place sometime in the last quarter of this year.