Viswanathan Anand: from a Chennai chess club to world champion

First moves at home

Viswanathan Anand, known to friends and fans as Vishy, was born on 11 December 1969 in Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu. His father, K. Viswanathan, worked with Southern Railways. His mother, Susheela, loved chess. The family moved to Madras, now Chennai, and it was his mother who taught him the game when he was six.

Soon he was playing at the Tal Chess Club in Chennai, which the Russian Cultural Centre had set up in 1972. There he heard lectures and read beginner books on chess openings. He did not start with heavy theory. He started with the games and the people around him.

“it is very easy to fall in love with your own opinion and your perspective in chess.”

— Viswanathan Anand, via The Week

Puzzles from a TV show in Manila

In 1978 his father was posted to Manila in the Philippines. Chess was popular there, and a TV programme called Chess Today discussed games and ended with a puzzle for viewers. The show aired while Anand was at school, so his mother watched it, wrote down the games and puzzles, and went through them with him on a small board in the evening.

Anand solved the puzzles and his mother posted the answers to the TV station. The prize for a correct answer was a book. He won so often that the station finally asked him to take the books he wanted and stop sending entries, so that others could win too.

The Lightning Kid

After the family returned to Madras around 1980, Anand played tournaments on most weekends. At the Tal Chess Club he played five-minute blitz games and often stayed late into the night. He moved so fast that the first newspaper article about him called him "The Lightning Kid", and the name stayed with him.

The results followed. He became Tamil Nadu State Junior Champion in 1982. He won the Indian Championship each year from 1986 to 1988. In 1987 he won the World Junior Championship, and in 1988 he earned the grandmaster title, the first player in India's history to become a grandmaster.

World champion, five times

In 2000 Anand won the FIDE World Championship. In 2007 he won a double round-robin tournament in Mexico City among the world's top players to become the undisputed world champion, and that year he also reached number one on the world rating list. He defended the title against Vladimir Kramnik in 2008, Veselin Topalov in 2010 and Boris Gelfand in 2012. He became the first player to win the world title in three different formats: knockout, tournament and match.

In 2013 he lost his title to Magnus Carlsen in a match held in Chennai, his home city. Afterwards he openly gave credit to his opponent, saying Carlsen had provoked the mistakes he made. He lost a rematch to Carlsen in 2014, yet he kept competing at the top and won the World Rapid Championship in 2017, years after his first rapid title in 2003.

India has honoured him many times. He was the first person to receive the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, for 1991–92, and he received the Padma Vibhushan in 2007. He also mentors young players at the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy, and he is widely credited with sparking the chess boom in India.

The skills and habits that made the difference

Daily, active practice. As a boy in Manila, Anand finished his schoolwork first and then studied chess every day. Without top coaches nearby, he learned by working through TV analysis and solving puzzles by hand, with no computer to check his answers. Blitz games at the club trained him to see ideas quickly.

An open mind. In a 2019 interview about his book Mind Master, Anand warned that in chess it is easy to become attached to your own view of a position. He said he learned the most when a strong player saw a position very differently from him. From his rivals he learned to focus on making the most of his own strengths.

Preparation and self-control. At the highest level he worked with a team of trainers and helpers to prepare for matches. He also spoke about keeping anger and bitterness in check, because carrying them only harms you. Outside chess, he reads widely in mathematics, economics and current affairs, and he enjoys astronomy.