Perfect Candidate to Checkmate Carlsen
By Vishnu Prasad – CHENNAI
Published: 30th March 2014 04:06 AM

It took 91 moves to decide, but finally it is official! Viswanathan Anand will take on Magnus Carlsen in an attempt to reclaim the World Chess Championship crown that he had lost in Chennai in November.

Anand, who went into the penultimate round with a one point lead over second placed Levon Aronian, needed just a draw from his game against Sergey Karjakin after the Armenian went down to Dmitry Andreikin of Russia. The five-time World Champion duly delivered though Karjakin pushed him till the end in a lengthy affair.

Anand came into the tournament as the second worst ranked player in the draw and few expected him to go on to win, let alone with one round to go. “Anand’s fans should really be proud of him. Even though he is past his prime, he still fights like a warrior,” tweeted former Women’s Champion Susan Polgar. “Anand is the underdog in the rematch. But he’ll have his chances.”

Parimarjan Negi, who is the youngest Indian ever to become a Grandmaster, thinks that Anand has a much better chance in the rematch. “It will be a different Anand who will take on Carlsen this time. He will be much more confident. This was one of the strongest Candidates Tournaments in history and nobody really gave him a chance. So this victory will undoubtedly see him go in to the World Championship match in a better frame of mind than he did last year. Playing away from home will actually help Anand.”

He, however, says that Anand will have to avoid the mistakes he committed against Carlsen in 2013. “If you look at the opening exchanges of the World Championship match last year, both men were on an equal footing, but Anand succumbed to pressure as the game went on. It looked like maybe he had a psychological block while playing against Carlsen. He should look to avoid that.”

Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta also agreed that Anand will be under less pressure going into the match.

“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.”

Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com

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