Viswanathan Anand: A dutiful mind
By Ashok Venugopal | Express News Service | Published: 19th November 2016 01:06 AM |
Last Updated: 20th November 2016 03:21 PM
CHENNAI: Sunil Gavaskar once said what separates great players from the rest is ability to bounce back, reinvent themselves, and keep adapting to the changing times.
His words are true to any sport, as Viswanathan Anand proved yet again with his splendid showing at the Champions Showdown tournament in St Louis (United States). That he beat two of the strongest players in the world — Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana — must have given the Chennai legend a lot of satisfaction.
Despite jet lag after a long flight back home, the player turning 47 on December 11 took time off to speak to Express in the cool confines of the study at his RA Puram duplex apartment.
With medals and trophies won over a period of time forming a perfect backdrop, Anand said he was very satisfied with this performance, and wished to carry the momentum to next month’s London Classic.
Although he has not been able to closely follow the World Chess Championship match, Anand believes World No 1 Magnus Carlsen — despite letting Sergey Karjakin salvage a couple of draws — is a tough nut to crack.
Excerpts:
How satisfying was winning the Showdown ahead of Caruana and Nakamura?
Very. It was a tough event from which I didn’t particularly have any expectations. I’m familiar with the multiple-format setup, Zurich was one instance. But here, the number of games was more. Zurich had 15 games, while St Louis had 24. I expected as the tournament progressed, there would be a couple of days that will be uneven. But it was smooth and stable throughout. After four days, I was surprised that I was still undefeated. I technically didn’t lose a game because the one I did was due to time.
How comfortable were you with time control in St Louis?
This time delay is something that I had to get used to. I’m more used to playing on increments. You get two seconds or five seconds after every move. This was unusual for me. Of course, I have played games without increments. Time delay is not worse than that.
What do you attribute this performance to, your best this year so far?
I had a good result in Leon too. I attribute that to my stability. I played the best chess overall and didn’t make many mistakes. The ones I did make were in not converting winning positions. In fact, I almost had the luxury of not converting many but still winning the tournament.
Nakamura has been a tough player. Did winning two mini-matches against him make you happy?
Definitely. In fact, I had let him escape in at least two of the games. I was very happy with my play. I expected both Caruana and Nakamura to cause more problems than they eventually did.
Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com