Devil's Advocate: Viswanathan Anand on mind games

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY: Anand believes "cricket is a fact of life" in India but the country has not ignored him.

          

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Keywords: Vladimir Kramnik, Chess

Karan Thapar: The mind games begin long before the actual game. He or you start pressurising the other to get an advantage, so that when you meet face to face on the chessboard you have a point in your favour—at least a mental point.

Viswanathan Anand: Yes, I think it is important that you don’t let your opponent impose his style of play on you. A part of that begins mentally. At the chessboard if you start blinking every time he challenges you then in a certain sense you are withdrawing. That is very important to avoid.

It is very important to put pressure on your opponent (and) some of it is getting your opponent into unfamiliar territory. But some of it is also simply body language, showing confidence; showing that you are not affected by all sorts of interviews and remarks. You just have to ignore these things.

Karan Thapar: How do you compare yourself with the great chess players of the eighties and nineties. I suppose the two names that come to mind are Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov.

Viswanathan Anand: It is very funny for me to compare myself with them because in the nineties they were my contemporaries but in the eighties they were people I looked up to. I could not associate myself with them in any way. I grew up studying Karpov’s games. I think it is very difficult to see yourself objectively. I hardly ever compare myself directly.

Karan Thapar: Just after you won the World Championship in October you said beating Kasparov would be a nice challenge.

Viswanathan Anand: I think I sort of wonder what it would be like. In 1995 I played a match against him but it is amazing that in the next 10 years I was second or third in the rankings—most of the times second and he was first for this entire period—and we just never played each other. I think it would be very interesting.

Karan Thapar: Would you be in awe of him if you played him?

Viswanathan Anand: I think to some degree that is gone because I have played him for so long.

Karan Thapar: PTI published your scorecard. They said you played 78 matches with each other—both classical chess and rapid chess—of which you had won eight and he had won 27.

Viswanathan Anand: It is pretty one-sided. He built up a huge lead from round about the time of 1992 to till about 1999. After that it is not so bad but in general when you have such a score it is better not to try and explain it. But I think I could do a very good job now. From about 2005 I have felt that I could confront him. I think I could face him now.

Karan Thapar: Is it right to say that one of advantages people like Karpov and Kasparov have over you is that they are products of the Soviet system—of rigorous institutional training. Yours is much more intuitively done. Would you accept that you might have been a more rigorous player had you gone through the mill that they have gone through?

Viswanathan Anand: It is possible. I would have been a different person and then it is like one of those science fiction questions. What would I have been in another universe?