1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Viswanathan Anand

Viswanathan Anand Quotes

Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former World Chess Champion.

Anand became India's first grandmaster in 1988. He held the FIDE World Chess Championship from 2000 to 2002, thus becoming the first Asian to do so. He became the undisputed World Champion in 2007 and defended his title against Vladimir Kramnik in 2008. He then defended his title in the World Chess Championship 2010 against Veselin Topalov and in the World Chess Championship 2012 against Boris Gelfand. In the World Chess Championship 2013 he lost to challenger Magnus Carlsen and lost again to Carlsen in the World Chess Championship 2014.

He won the World Rapid Chess Championship in 2003 and 2017.

In April 2006 Anand became the fourth player in history to pass the 2800 Elo mark on the FIDE rating list, after Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov. He occupied the number one position for 21 months, the 6th longest on record.

Anand was also the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi 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.

✵ 11. December 1969
Viswanathan Anand photo
Viswanathan Anand: 25   quotes 0   likes

Famous Viswanathan Anand Quotes

“When you lose, you really feel a sense of self … You actually feel that you are being taken apart, rather than just your pieces.”

Viswanathan Anand

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

“A [world title] match has that feeling much more strongly because it's the same guy doing it over and over and over … When you play a single person, it becomes narrower because you are so focused on each other. It is a lot more personal.”

Viswanathan Anand

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

“Being the undisputed world champion is a relief. We instituted a unified chess title, I am the absolute world champion.”

Viswanathan Anand

Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,

“Age is part of it. For instance, I recognise that [Carlsen] is going to do certain things because he's 22 and there are certain things I can do because I'm 43.”

Viswanathan Anand

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

“When I first visited Moscow in the late 1980s, I was so intimidated. I thought I could be checkmated by every cabdriver.”

Viswanathan Anand

page=291
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

“I learned to play fast without agonizing about strategy or overanalyzing individual moves”

Viswanathan Anand

After he started playing “blitz” (the shortest format of Chess) in Chennai in early years, pages=292-293
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

Viswanathan Anand Quotes about the world

“I have what I think is an extremely Indian relationship with God…. In Moscow before the tie breaker of the World Championship in May 2012, I again entreated God:Just stay on my side of the board.”

Viswanathan Anand

page=292
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

“…in 2000, when I defeated Alexei Shirov at the World Chess Championship in Teheran to become the first Indian ever to win the title.”

Viswanathan Anand

pages=292-93
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

“I can relate to many of the emotions they describe…But personally I just like to get on with the job of playing chess. I understand that if I win, I'm probably crushing my opponent's ego but it's not like I do that with great satisfaction. So I don't really look for conflict around the game … It's true that someone like Kasparov has this sense of history, and I'm talking world history rather than chess history. He has a sense of himself being in it, which, for me, is very hard to understand or even relate to in any way.”

Viswanathan Anand

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

“To become a world chess champion.”

Viswanathan Anand

At the age of six when some one asked him as to what he wanted to become.
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

Viswanathan Anand Quotes about feelings

“I felt I had I worked hard enough and I felt confident I had done the right kind of work and the right amount of work. But when you talk of preparations, the measure of success is whether it works or not. In that area, I failed completely. I did not stay the course. When you hit the right spot, the sweet spot, it feels great and you feel the preparations have been ideal, but I never got there.”

Viswanathan Anand

2013 World Chess Championship

“What happens to you at the board begins to feel like it's happening to you in person.”

Viswanathan Anand

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

“You would have to sit at the board and sweat and feel the fear of defeat or the nearness of victory to understand what goes through a player's head … If you think it's that easy, switch off the computer and try and figure out a few moves on your own.”

Viswanathan Anand

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

Viswanathan Anand Quotes

“I wasn't expecting him to be a gracious, so fair enough. The winner can say anything when he wins… so I guess we will just have to swallow it for now.”

Viswanathan Anand

2013 World Chess Championship

“But perhaps they were thrown off by my playing style, which was intuitive-and perhaps a little influenced by Vodka. I ran away with the match early. The result was overwhelmingly in my favour: four wins, five draws and only one loss –an annihilation. The Russians were stunned. I was pretty surprised myself.”

Viswanathan Anand

On his match against Alexey Dreev held at Chennai in 1991. page=291.
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

Loss , Drawing

“When I started out, Indians did not have much interest in chess…Now India seems to spawn new chess academies every day.”

Viswanathan Anand

page=292
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

“One of the things I bring to my play is my Indian identity – my ability to shrug off a loss as destiny and hope for better tomorrow. I am often described as a “natural” or “intuitive player.””

Viswanathan Anand

pages=292-93
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

Hope , Nature , Loss

“As a young kid sprouting a wispy moustache, I was sometimes dismissed by the Russians as an upstart. I have been referred to even as a “coffeehouse player””

Viswanathan Anand

page=292
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

“Anything unusual that you can produce has quadruple, quintuple the value, precisely because your opponent is likely to do the predictable stuff, which is on a computer.”

Viswanathan Anand

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

“The fact is he outplayed me. He just proved to be stronger.”

Viswanathan Anand

2013 World Chess Championship

“My dream is chess played in every school in India. The Soviets would include a chessboard along with the bride’s trousseau to ensure that the children born of that marriage knew the rules of chess.”

Viswanathan Anand

page=295
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

Marriage , Children , School , Dreams

“I started at the age of six. My elder brother and sister were dabbling a bit, and then I went to my mother and pestered her to teach me as well.”

Viswanathan Anand

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

Age , Sister

“Since the 1990s technology has taken some of the sheen off the Russian trainers and their methods.”

Viswanathan Anand

pages=292-93
Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower

“Magnus has many good qualities… he is very versatile and he can play a lot of positions at a very high level. He's also very flexible. And he has this amazing talent for grinding on, as you say. So that combination I was unable to deal with.”

Viswanathan Anand

2013 World Chess Championship

“He must make sure Magnus is out of his comfort zone, he needs to direct the positions. It needs to be a mess. He needs to get Magnus into a brawl.”

Viswanathan Anand

Lawrence Trent during 2013 championship quoted in "Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand"

Making love

Similar authors

Rafael Nadal photo
Rafael Nadal 7
Spanish tennis player
LeBron James photo
LeBron James 40
American basketball player
Kobe Bryant photo
Kobe Bryant 32
American basketball player
Cristiano Ronaldo photo
Cristiano Ronaldo 8
Portuguese association football player
Lionel Messi photo
Lionel Messi 31
Argentine association football player
Zlatan Ibrahimović photo
Zlatan Ibrahimović 16
Swedish association football player
Gianluigi Buffon photo
Gianluigi Buffon 3
Italian association football player
Michael Jordan photo
Michael Jordan 46
American retired professional basketball player and busines…
Shahrukh Khan photo
Shahrukh Khan 75
Indian actor, producer and television personality
José Mourinho photo
José Mourinho 50
Portuguese association football player and manager