Future of Indian chess looks promising: Viswanathan Anand

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand on Thursday said that future of Indian chess "looks promising" and some players will soon break into top 10 of FIDE ratings. Anand, currently at 15th spot at FIDE rankings, picked likes of Pentala Harikrishna and Vidit Gujarathi as players expected to be among top-10 in coming years.

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"I would say Hari (P Harikrishna), Vidit (Gujrati), Surya (Sekar Ganguly), Sasi (K Sasikiran) (as players of future). Sooner or later somebody from India will break into top 10. Things are looking promising for India as we have a lot of talent," Anand told PTI here during an interaction.

"Players like Praggu (R Praggnanandhaa, who recently won a tournament in London), Nihal Sarin, D Gukesh, Raunak Sadhwani and re are more. Things are looking good for Indian chess," he added.

Anand, who turned 50 on Wednesday, said competition among world's elite has become really tough and few players have been able to hold on to ir positions. He agreed that gap between world number one Magnus Carlsen of rway and rest of players was a "big" one, but said players like Fabia Caruana (2nd in FIDE rating) and China's Ding Liren (3rd) were doing well in recent times. "At moment, gap between Carlsen and ors is a big one. (Fabia) Caruana and Ding (Liren) are doing incredibly well as well in recent times."

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Asked why Carlsen was so special, Anand said, "He is able to basically execute his skills. He has a lot of talent to begin with and puts in a lot of hard work. He is very good at learning new things." Anand spoke at length about his book 'Mind Master' penned along with sports writer Susan Ninan, which is slated to be launched in city on Friday.

"It is a project that has been floating for a long time but a couple of years ago we suddenly thought 50th birthday was a convenient deadline and we aim for that. That also forced us to concentrate and finish book," he said.

"I feel it was time to tell my story. And way we selected it was t so much like an autobiography as to pick out most significant moments in my life. ones that I remember most, that had most impact on my way of thinking. Extract life lessons from m and present m.

"It is a journey through my career and world of chess, things that I learnt, struggles that I faced."

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book also contains references to his mor (Susila Viswanathan) who was responsible for him taking up chess. On his rivalry with legendary Russians Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov, Anand said book has a fair mention of it and both had helped him learn a lot. "I have written about rivalries with m, how I experienced m, how I won through m. I learnt a lot from m also." 

Recalling a particular incident, Anand spoke about how Karpov came 45 minutes late for a game and manner in which he reacted to it.  "That's an interesting chapter and people would find it interesting too," he said. On use of computers in chess, he said, "When I started playing chess, computers had thing to do with chess. w y have almost everything to do with chess."

Asked what keeps him going for so long at highest level, Anand simply said it was because he liked playing chess.   On possibility of taking up coaching once he calls it quit, five-time world champion said he has t thought much about his future. "I don't kw. I am t thinking too much about that. I might do some mentoring.  This year I have a full calendar so that's my full focus."

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