Anand not giving up, wants to have a 'lighter' 2020

He is struggling to recreate his magic on 64 squares, of late but giving up is not yet an option for five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, who has opted for a lighter 2020 season. Anand will skip four to five tournaments this year including Grand Chess Tour. He could not qualify for Candidates 2020 and h a below-par outing at Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee, Nerlands last month, finishing joint sixth spot with Anish Giri, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Alireza Firouzja.

" thoughts of giving-up comes up but at least this year, I don't think it's going to happen. I'm looking forward to playing events that I have," Anand told PTI on sidelines of his book launch 'Mind Master', co-authored by journalist Susan Ninan.

"I don't think about it a lot. qualification cycle is very unpredictable so, I always figure if I qualify for something n I'll worry about it but re's no point thinking about it you know two stages earlier," Anand, who has now slipped to 15 in ranking, said.

Anand however said he does not have any regrets on missing out on world championship bid. "No, why should I. No, not at all. If re was, it was briefly last year but it was alrey clear in October that I wasn't challenging and that's it. I have accepted that and moved on." "If I do it, it's it's fine. But I have alrey won title five times. So why should I be disappointed?"

Here in city as part of "Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet", Anand wants to spend time with his family and skip qualification events and Grand Chess Tour. "This year it looks like it'll be a much lighter year. I will not play GCT events I will not play about four or five events less than last year to start off and n re is alrey qualification events. I will not play something like Isle of Man and so on. So it's a much lighter year." "I decided that's nice. re are many years I wish I was playing less and so this year, you know, let's take vantage of it. Even if you're playing few tournaments, you still want to do well. So I'll try to train a lot and get rey for m."

After Anand, re is only Vidit Gujrathi and P Harikrishna inside 2700-mark but chess wizard said future of Indian chess is bright with likes of Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Gukesh D and Raunak Shwani, all under 15. "If you look at our current crop of youngsters, I think we have a very good future. y (Nihal, Prag, Gukesh and Shwani) are all under 15. That means also y've got a lot of time to fulfil ir potential and I'm hopeful y will." "What is really happening is that chess world is very competitive noways. So a lot of people fighting for every qualification sport, every tournament and as a result, it's very hard. Hari Krishna came up to top-20 and he's still doing well. Vidit a bit furr behind, but still a 2700 player."

Anand said he was shocked by death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant who died in a helicopter crash last month along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna. " worst thing is that probably what he's thinking when chopper is going down. It must be an awful feeling for a far to be in that situation. If you think about it, it's really horrible. "I followed his career in Lakers and all and he's a huge legend in basketball. And story is just very tragic. First of all him but his daughter was re as well," he said.

Anand furr spoke about his autobiography and said his former seconds including Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Peter Heine Nielsen liked book. "A lot of people said it was very frank. What's point of trying to be diplomatic and skirt se issues. You just say what you want. And that's probably feedback that I enjoyed most. If someone thought that y got some insight into you that y didn't have earlier than I thought, well, mission accomplished."