During September-October in 1995, P. Harikrishna would eagerly wait for his school teacher's update on the world chess championship match every day. “I was in fifth standard in a boarding school at Guntur when Viswanathan Anand took on Garry Kasparov for the PCA world championship match in the USA,“ Hari, who was the national U-10 champion then, said.
Hari, the second Indian after Anand to win the world junior title, vividly remembers the way the 1995 match panned out.
“All of us in school thought Anand would win the title after he drew first blood against the much-acclaimed Kasparov in the ninth game. Anand's loss in the next round didn't deter us from believing that the Indian would come back home as champion. But I wasn’t aware of Kasparov’s experience or the psychologial aspects of the game,” the current India No.2 said.
The title match was held on the Observation Deck of the World Trade Center’s 107th floor in New York City. The iconic building may have perished in 2001 but the memories of the intriguing match endure. After a sterile eight games, the Indian champion went one up after the ninth and the Russian responded immediately.
International arbiter R.R. Vasudevan said Anand’s win in the ninth round created a lot of buzz. “There was instant global recognition for the Indian,” he added. Kasparov, a fierce person, enjoyed a reputation for being virtually invincible.
Anand, on the other hand, was an unknown commodity for the millions of casual chess fans. After making it all square in game 10, Kasparov unleashed his secret weapons to win the three of the next four games. The ‘Tiger from Madras’ could never recover from the setback. He eventually lost the 20-game series 7.5-10.5.
According to media reports, Kasparov said after the match that “Anand had prepared well for chess, but not sufficiently prepared psychologically.” Throwing light on the strategy used by Kasparov in the match against Anand, IM Vishal Sareen from Delhi said that the Russian played varied first moves namely d4, e4 and c4 in his first three white games to figure out Anand’s preparations.
“Kasparov used the rare Sicilian Dragon opening to crush Anand in the 11th game,” he added. Sareen wasn’t surprised by the result. “It was still early days for Anand while Kasparov was already a professional. I think Anand learnt a lot from the match and used it well later in his career,” he added.