Background and career
Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster. Anand is a four-time undisputed World Chess Champion, a FIDE World Chess Champion, a two-time World Rapid Chess Champion, and a World Blitz Chess Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988 and became the fourth player in history to pass the 2800 Elo mark on the FIDE rating list In April 2006. He occupied the number-one position for 21 months, the sixth-longest period on record, and has the eighth-highest peak FIDE rating of all time. Anand defeated Alexei Shirov in a six-game match to win the 2000 FIDE World Chess Championship, a title he held until 2002. He became the undisputed world champion by winning the 2007 World Championship tournament, and defended his title in matchplay against Vladimir Kramnik in 2008, Veselin Topalov in 2010, and Boris Gelfand in 2012. In 2013, he lost the title to challenger Magnus Carlsen, and he lost a rematch to Carlsen in 2014 after winning the 2014 Candidates Tournament. Known for his rapid playing speed as a child, Anand earned the sobriquet "Lightning Kid" during his early career in the 1980s. He won the FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship in 2003 and 2017, the Grenkeleasing Rapid World Championship, 11 times, and the Amber chess tournament rapid event 9 times. Thus, Anand is often considered the greatest rapid chess player of all time. He also won the World Blitz Chess Cup in 2000, the Chess World Cup in 2000 and 2002, and numerous other top-level events. Anand was the first recipient of the Khel Ratna Award in 1991–92, India's highest sporting honour. In 2007, he was awarded India's second-highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, making him the first sportsperson to receive the award. As a chess administrator, he was the elected deputy president of FIDE in August 2022, and briefly served as acting president of FIDE after Arkady Dvorkovich was added on the international sanctions list against Russia in July 2026. After the conclusion of the 2026 FIDE presidential election, Anand remained as deputy president after Timur Turlov was elected as the new president of FIDE. He has played a significant role in popularizing chess in India.
Viswanathan Anand was born on 11 December 1969 in a Tamil Hindu family in Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu, India. His father, Krishnamurthy Viswanathan, was a general manager in the Southern Railways and he had studied in Jamalpur, Bihar. He later moved to Chennai, where he grew up. His mother, Sushila, was a housewife, a chess enthusiast, and an influential socialite. Anand is the youngest of three children. He is 11 years younger than his sister and 13 years younger than his brother. His brother, Shivakumar, is a manager at Crompton Greaves in India, and his sister, Anuradha, is a professor at the University of Michigan. Anand learned to play chess at the age of six from his mother. He further developed his skills in Manila, where he lived with his parents from 1978 to the early 1980s while his father worked as a consultant for the Philippine National Railways. He was educated at Don Bosco Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Chennai and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Loyola College, Chennai.
Anand's rise in the Indian chess world was meteoric. National success came early for him when he won the sub-junior championship with a score of 9/9 points in 1983, at age 14. In 1984 Anand won the Asian Junior Championship in Coimbatore, earning an International Master (IM) norm in the process. Soon afterward, he participated in the 26th Chess Olympiad, in Thessaloniki, where he made his debut on the Indian national team. There, Anand scored 7½ points in 11 games, gaining his second IM norm. In 1985 he became the youngest Indian to achieve the title of International Master, at age 15, by winning the Asian Junior Championship for the second year in a row, this time in Hong Kong. At age 16, he became the national chess champion. He won that title two more times. He played games at blitz speed. In 1987, he became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship. In 1987, at age 18, he became India's first grandmaster by winning the Shakti Finance International chess tournament held in Coimbatore, India. One of his notable successes in this tournament was his win against Russian grandmaster Efim Geller. He was awarded Padma Shri at age 18.
In the 1993 World Chess Championship cycle, Anand qualified for his first Candidates Tournament, winning his first match but narrowly losing his quarterfinal match to 1990 runner-up Anatoly Karpov. In 1994–95, Anand and Gata Kamsky dominated the qualifying cycles for the rival FIDE and PCA world championships. In the FIDE cycle, Anand lost his 2nd round (Candidates semifinal) match to Kamsky after leading early. Kamsky lost the 1996 FIDE championship match to Karpov. In the 1995 PCA cycle, Anand won matches against Oleg Romanishin and Michael Adams without a loss, then avenged his FIDE loss by defeating Kamsky in the Candidates final. In 1995, he played the PCA World Chess Championship against Kasparov at New York City's World Trade Center. After an opening run of eight draws (a record for the opening of a world championship match until 21 November 2018), Anand won game nine with a powerful exchange sacrifice, but then lost four of the next five. He lost the match 10½–7½. In the 1998 FIDE cycle, FIDE granted Karpov, the reigning champion, direct seeding into the final against the winner of the seven-round single-elimination Candidates tournament. The psychological and physical advantage Karpov gained from this decision caused significant controversy, leading to Kramnik's withdrawal from the tournament. Anand won the tournament, defeating Adams in the final, and immediately faced Karpov for the championship. Despite this disadvantage for Anand, which he described as being "brought in a coffin" to play Karpov, the regular match ended 3–3, which led to a rapid playoff, which Karpov won 2–0. Karpov thus remained the FIDE champion.
Anand has won the Mainz Chess Classic, a Category 21 Championship, a record 11 times. In 2008, he defeated Carlsen en route to his 11th title in that event. Anand is the first player to have won five titles of the Corus chess tournament. He is the first player to have won each of the Big Three supertournaments at the time: Corus (1989, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2006), Linares (1998, 2007, 2008), and Dortmund (1996, 2000, 2004). Anand has a stellar record at the annual Melody Amber Tournament (2 separate and unique Blindfold and Rapid Chess supertournaments played): he has 5 overall prizes (winning in 1994, 1997, 2003, 2005, and 2006), and has the most "rapidplay" titles, winning 9 times. He is also the only player to win the blind and rapid sections of the tournament in the same year (twice, in 1997 and 2005). Anand won three consecutive Advanced Chess tournaments in Leon, Spain, after Kasparov introduced this form of chess in 1998, and is widely recognised as the world's best Advanced Chess player, where players may consult a computer to aid in their calculation of variations. Anand's collection My Best Games of Chess was published in 1998 and updated in 2001. His individual tournament successes include the Corus chess tournament in 2006 (tied with Topalov), Dortmund in 2004, and Linares in 2007 and 2008. In 2007 he won the Grenkeleasing Rapid championship for the tenth time, defeating Levon Aronian. Just a few days before, Aronian had defeated Anand in the Chess960 final. In March 2007, Anand won the Linares chess tournament and it was widely believed that he would be ranked world No. 1 in the FIDE Elo rating list for April 2007. But Anand was No. 2 on the initial list released because the Linares result was not included. FIDE subsequently announced that Linares would be included, pushing Anand to number one in the April 2007 list.
In 1993, the newly formed Professional Chess Association (PCA) held a 54-player, 11-round Swiss-style qualifying tournament in Groningen on 19–30 December, an equivalent of FIDE's Interzonal. Anand scored 7½/11 to finish tied for first and secure a berth in the 1994 Candidates' Tournament. In the single-elimination tournament, Anand handily dispatched Adams and Oleg Romanishin in the quarterfinal and semifinal matches, held in New York City and Linares. Facing Kamsky in a 12-game final match held at Las Palmas, Anand lost Game 1 on time in a winning position but recovered with wins in Game 3, 9, and 11 to secure a 6½–4½ victory and a match against reigning champion Kasparov for the world chess championship. It was the first Candidates' Tournament victory of Anand's career. The 20-game championship match was held from 10 September to 16 October 1995 on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center in New York City. The match started with a then-record eight consecutive draws before Anand broke open the match in Game 9, pressing and eventually breaking through Kasparov's Sicilian Defense with a powerful exchange sacrifice. But Anand scored just half a point in the next five games, losing twice to Kasparov's Sicilian Dragon defence, and eventually conceded a 10½–7½ loss. Afterwards, Kasparov commented on Anand's psychological approach to the match:
