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Viswanathan Anand's tryst with Karpov, Kasparov, Kamsky, Kramnik

Karpov, Kasparov, Kamsky, Kramnik... here is a list of opponents whom the defending world champion came face to face in his quest for titles.

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“This boy will go a long way... until he meets (Anatoly) Karpov and (Garry) Kasparov,” Raja Ravisekhar said in 1990. The boy was Viswanathan Anand just entering the world stage having qualified for the inter-zonal tournament. Raja Ravisekhar was twice national champion and an International Master but he always believed his status in astrology was that of a Grandmaster.

The same year, Anand qualified for the Candidates tournament from Manila. He beat Russian Alexei Dreev in the first round in Chennai and ran into Anatoly Karpov in the quarterfinals. Well, Ravisekhar came back to haunt this writer as Anand lost just one game in eight and exited the world championship in Brussels.

But the boy became a man in just another year. In 1992, Anand was already the crown prince of world chess, having won the strongest tournament in Reggio Emilia (Italy) beating both Kasparov and Karpov on the way. When he came to Sanghinagar (Hyderabad) to play his FIDE World championship Candidates quarterfinals against Russian-born American Gata Kamsky, Anand was already the favourite and probably good enough to reach the title match because Kasparov was not in the official cycle and Karpov was in his 40s.

It was neither Kasparov nor Karpov but a third K (Kamsky), who staged one of the fiercest comebacks to take Anand to the tiebreaker after being 1.5 points down with two games to go. The American won the tiebreaker to advance to the semifinals. That was the time the man had become a boy again.

That was a lesson learnt the hard way and Anand would not forget that for a long time. Six months later, Anand was making progress in the rival World championship cycle and by chance, he ran into the same Kamsky in the final before the title match. It was held at Las Palmas (Gran Canaria). Anand had already shifted his base to Spain, where he had an extraordinary pair of foster parents in Nieves Perea and Mauricio Perea. They had decided that they would take over Anand for the match against Kamsky and shield him throughout. In Las Palmas, Anand was not accessible at all except for the press conferences. And when he crushed the American, the Pereas gave a nice interview in the presence of Anand in which they told Indians in general, “You should know how to protect your champions. We wanted to show you how to do it.” They were referring to the disaster at Sanghinagar. Anand had reached the title match stage in the Professional Chess Association cycle.

The stage was set for the biggest K (Kasparov) to come face to face with Anand. The title match was scheduled for September 1995 in New York and Kasparov had himself campaigned enough to get the World trade Centre to host the match the whole world was waiting for. ‘On top of the world’, screamed the pre-match advertisements for the encounter because it was held on the 108th floor of WTC. Anand started well in the 20-game match, taking the lead in the ninth game after eight draws. Kasparov struck back in the next game with some strange moves off the board, banging the clock and trooping out of the playing booth after every move. Anand the man had become a boy again. Kasparov won the match handsomely, though the super K was ridiculed by chess fraternity for his intimidating tactics. Curiously, the inauguration of the match was on September 11 and six years later on the same day, the super structure by brought down by two planes.

Anand was already 26 and in two years when he was in his prime, he was ready for another World championship cycle, his fourth overall. He won a month-long qualifying tournament in Groningen in December 1997 and was to face Karpov for the world title in the next week at Lausanne. Though the format was six games, Anand was exhausted. A fresh Karpov, who did not have to play the qualifiers because he was the reigning champion, took on Anand and won the match in tiebreaker after the six-game final was locked three-all. “I was carried in a coffin to meet a fresh Karpov,” said Anand after the match.

Karpov virtually retired after that and Kasparov had his own cycle to fend for. By 2000, Anand found himself out of the way of the two super Ks. He won the qualifying matches in New Delhi and trounced Spaniard Alexei Shirov in the title match in Tehran for his first World Championship title.

Anand had to wait for eight long years before he met the last of the Ks who came his way.
(Vladimir) Kramnik had displaced Kasparov as the World champion after winning a long match in 2000 and was still considered a better match player than Anand. In 2008, in the unification World championship match in Bonn, Anand outplayed the Russian and another K disappeared from his sight.

Outside the playing arena, yet another K came into Anand’s camp. (Rustam) Kasimdzhanov, the former World champion from Uzbekistan, joined Team Anand as one of the trainers and the partnership lasted five years before the Uzbek took a break before the current World Championship.

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