Viswanathan Anand, (born December 11, 1969, Madras [now Chennai], India), Indian chess master who won the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE; international chess federation) world championship in 2000, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2012.
Anand realized to play chess from his mom when he was 6 years previous. By the time he was 14, Anand had received the Indian National Sub-Junior Championship with an ideal rating of 9 wins in 9 video games. At age 15 he grew to become the youngest Indian to earn the worldwide grasp title. The following 12 months, he received the primary of three consecutive nationwide championships. At age 17 Anand grew to become the primary Asian to win a world chess title when he received the 1987 FIDE World Junior Championship, which is open to gamers who haven't reached their twentieth birthday by January 1 of the match 12 months. Anand adopted up that victory by incomes the worldwide grandmaster title in 1988. In 1991 Anand received his first main worldwide chess match, ending forward of world champion Garry Kasparov and former world champion Anatoly Karpov. For the primary time because the American Bobby Fischer deserted the title in 1975, a non-Russian had emerged as a favorite to grow to be world chess champion.
Throughout the Nineties Anand vied with Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik for place on the prime of FIDE’s official chess score record. Anand’s first try to win FIDE’s world chess championship resulted in 1991, when he misplaced within the quarter finals to Karpov within the FIDE Knockout World Chess Championship. Because of the weird format of the occasion, involving a collection of brief matches with fast time controls, it was boycotted by lots of the prime gamers. The determination to make use of a knockout format sprang from FIDE’s issue in securing a prize fund to pay for the standard lengthy sequence of championship matches following Kasparov’s defection from FIDE to type a brand new group, the Professional Chess Association (PCA; 1993–96). Anand obtained his first title shot in 1995, when he was ranked quantity two behind Kasparov, however he misplaced the PCA championship match to Kasparov with a rating of 1 win, 13 attracts, and 4 losses. Anand’s subsequent title shot got here in 1998 in opposition to Karpov, who had reclaimed the FIDE title following Kasparov’s formation of the PCA. At the time of their match, Anand was ranked third, behind Kasparov and Kramnik however forward of sixth-ranked Karpov. Anand first needed to battle his approach by the strongest sequence of knockout matches in chess historical past so as to play Karpov, who was immediately seeded into the ultimate match. The gamers drew their common six-game match with two wins apiece and two attracts, however Karpov received the 2 “quick chess” tie-break video games to win the match.
Anand broke by in 2000, profitable the FIDE World Chess Championship, which once more featured knockout matches. Because of the custom of getting to beat the earlier champion in a comparatively lengthy match, in addition to misgivings concerning the brief codecs and fast time controls used within the knockout matches, most followers didn't acknowledge Anand, or any of the FIDE champions since Kasparov, as official. Anand lastly achieved his place within the record of usually acknowledged world chess champions along with his victory within the 2007 FIDE World Chess Championship, a double round-robin match in opposition to a lot of the finest gamers on this planet. (In a double round-robin, every participant performs two video games, one with the white items and one with the black items, in opposition to each different participant.) Acceptance of the legitimacy of this match as a title occasion was the results of a collection of agreements between FIDE and Kramnik, who had grow to be the “classical” world chess champion by defeating Kasparov in a match. In the settlement, FIDE acknowledged Kramnik because the classical champion, Kramnik agreed to defend his classical title in opposition to a FIDE challenger in a unification match, and either side agreed that the winner of that match would put the unified title on the road in FIDE’s subsequent championship match. In addition, FIDE assured Kramnik a championship match in opposition to the match winner ought to he fail to win the occasion. Although Kramnik formally conceded the championship title after shedding the match to Anand, he later expressed some reservations, stating, “At present, I take the view that I have just lent Anand the title temporarily.” Anand defended the title in opposition to Kramnik in a 12-game match scheduled from October 14 to November 2, 2008, in Bonn, Germany. The match ended October 29, 2008, as Anand drew the eleventh sport to win the match with a rating of three wins, 7 attracts, and 1 loss. Anand retained his title as world champion in 2010, defeating Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria within the twelfth and last sport of their match. In 2012 he confronted Boris Gelfand of Israel within the championship match. The two males had been tied after the twelfth sport, however Anand received the speedy tiebreaker spherical to stay world champion.
Anand defended his world champion title in 2013 in opposition to Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who received the scheduled 12-game match after the tenth sport. The subsequent 12 months Anand and Carlsen had a rematch for the world championship, which resulted in victory for Carlsen.
Anand, who first earned the nickname of the “Lightning Kid” in India, is understood for fast tactical calculations, which he has displayed by profitable quite a few “speed chess” titles. In 1998 Anand printed a group of his video games, Vishy Anand: My Best Games of Chess, which he expanded with new video games in 2001.