Future of Indian chess looks promising: Viswanathan Anand

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

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"I would say Hari (P Harikrishna), Vidit (Gujrati), Surya (Sekar Ganguly), Sasi (K Sasikiran) (as the players of the 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 there are more. Things are looking good for Indian chess," he added.

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

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

"I feel it was time to tell my story. And the way we selected it was not so much like an autobiography as to pick out the most significant moments in my life. The ones that I remember the most, that had the most impact on my way of thinking. Extract life lessons from them and present them.

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

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

Recalling a particular incident, Anand spoke about how Karpov came 45 minutes late for a game and the manner in which he reacted to it.  "That's an interesting chapter and people would find it interesting too," he said. On the use of computers in chess, he said, "When I started playing chess, computers had nothing to do with chess. Now they have almost everything to do with chess."

Asked what keeps him going for so long at the highest level, Anand simply said it was because he liked playing chess.   On the possibility of taking up coaching once he calls it quit, the five-time world champion said he has not thought much about his future. "I don't know. I am not 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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