Many a moves at crucial times 'huge leapt to unknown': Anand

Jul 20, 2012 |

New Delhi

Tags:

He has been the undisputed world champion for the last five years but Indian chess Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand says that many of his moves in crucial stages of games were simply "huge leapt to the unknown" and a "little bit of luck" was needed to win big tournaments.

Anand said that he has to do "informed guesswork" based on his intuition in many crucial situations and those moves turn out to be the winners.

"Many a times, some moves are just a huge leapt to the unknown. My intuition and informed guesswork turned out to be right in many situations. But it depends on the constant training of psychological functions and it is more likely that I am right in the places I know and am more used to," Anand said at his felicitation function by the NIIT here.

Referring to a match in 2000 against Alexander Khalifman here, Anand said, "Sometimes even in tournaments in which you were playing your best chess, you need some divine help. You need a little bit of luck."

"At times you need something to happen in your favour. During these times you feel only talent does not work though it is not something which happens often," he added.

NIIT felicitated Anand for winning the fifth world crown this year while also celebrating the 10th year of the setting up of Mind Champions Academy in 2002 under the guidance of the chess champion, which now boasts of 1.5 million school kids being involved in the sport.

Anand first turned Grandmaster in 1987 and has won many a tournaments, including the five world titles, but he said he has not thought of retirement yet.

"Lot of people ask what next and how long I will play. I said I will play as long as I am enjoying my game. And about targets and winning titles, I don't have any structured target that I want to win these many world titles and all."

"People asked am I thinking about sixth title but I said I think of the next title and not the sixth," he said, while also ruling out joining politics later in his life.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/173055" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-15d867f2eb5f11240b2f57883b57df0f" value="form-15d867f2eb5f11240b2f57883b57df0f" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="81067794" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>