The Bonn Supremacy

The Euro-centric world of chess would not admit it, but Viswanathan Anand has had to win the title of world champion not once but three times, his third title triumph in Bonn over Russian Vladimir Kramnik, being the sweetest and many believe the longest arriving. Anand is the only man in the 122-year-old history of the world championship to win the world title in all three formats and thus ending all arguments about his claim to be the greatest player in the world today. In 2000 he won the title through a knock-out event held in India and Iran, and in the 2007 World Championship in Mexico City he fought off the world’s top seven players in a double round-robin and was still denied his due by sceptics.

Even though Mexico City was touted as the first unified World Championship after the Gary Kasparov breakaway from the International Chess Federation in 1993, once again Anand found that the goal posts had been shifted. A few months before Bonn, Kramnik even declared, “The tournament in Mexico was from my point of view a huge compromise.... I still believe that the real chess championship is actually a match between the best players, not a tournament.” Bonn was always going to be about more than just chess: it had all the ingredients of a classic final between two contrasting players and of course each man’s pride and sense of redemption.The world of chess had been clamouring for a one-on-one between Anand, 38, whose exciting, racy style of play made him a favourite with audiences and the 33-year-old Kramnik, more conventional and the darling of the purists. Anand’s is a home-made talent which has flourished despite formidable odds, while Kramnik is a product of Russia’s systematic school of chess. Both men had dominated the rankings and their events, featuring in the world’s top three for almost 15 years running. In the 1990s, the shadow of Kasparov, the world’s highest-rated player ever loomed over them both but the millennium gave both men the chance to step into the sun.
Bonn’s Art and Exhibition Hall was turned into a fitting arena for these gladiators of the mind. Four hundred spectators filed in every day, ranging from those who paid 35 Euros for a single game ticket (which sometimes involved squatting on the stairs to watch) and 280 Euros for an exclusive one-day ticket. They were separated from the only illuminated spot in the room—the competition table—by a net that blocked out the ambient noise from the crowd. There were chess geeks from Germany and NRIs from Europe, USA and even Australia. Among the audience were researchers in artificial intelligence and genetics, drawn to the event to dig deeper into specific aspects of the contest. A commentary hall next door accommodated the spillover fans with an audience following the match ‘live’ with grandmasters providing running commentary in German. The excited buzz of chess talk was unmistakable, and all the buzz revolved what the Indian had wrought. The single biggest surprise in Anand’s game was switching his opening from his patented king pawn which he has used for almost his entire career to a queen pawn opening. In tennis, this would be like a right-hander walking into a Wimbledon final and serving lefthanded. Other than proving to be a shock to the opponent’s system, it would force a re-alignment of the entire game plan. More so in chess where the plan and the execution feed off each other.
Other than the two contenders involved, every world chess final features another important set of combatants: the backroom teams. Kramnik’s team also featured among others, Peter Leko of Hungary, Anand’s long-time friend and former ‘second’. The Indian’s backroom team was announced but remained cloistered in his hotel for the entire competition. They included former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan, Peter Heine Nielsen of Denmark, his ‘second’ for the last four years, Indian National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly and a surprise package in the 22-year-old Pole, Radoslaw Wojtaszek.
Impressed by Wojtaszek’s thinking during their meetings in the German league, Anand decided to add him to his team of ‘seconds’ along with Hans-Walter Schmitt, the German who organises the Chess Classic of Mainz. Before coming to Bonn, both men sought the help of some younger upcoming chess prodigies on the quiet, Anand with 17-year-old Norwegian Magnus Carlsen and Kramnik with Ukranian teenager Sergey Karjakin. But in terms of ideas it was evident that Anand had Kramnik’s scalp. His excellent home preparation and the novel moves he uncorked every day in the first half had a psychological affect on and off the board. The Russian was able to win only a single game out of 11; Anand won three, two with black. Kramnik’s capitulation came as a shock to Russia with Moscow-based women’s grandmaster Elmira Mirzoeva saying the atmosphere at home would be “like at a funeral. The world chess title is treated like a national treasure in Russia.”After Bonn, Anand has forcibly silenced the rude murmurs of dissent that have denied a great champion the respect he was owed. His cupboard is now full—along with three world titles and two world Cups, Anand has won titles in the compressed forms of the game.
He has one world Blitz title, he has won 11 Rapid titles in the format’s biggest event held in Mainz. The closest analogy is that if Blitz (every player is given 25 minutes to complete a game) is like 50-overs cricket, rapid is the T-20 version of chess where every player has only five minutes to complete a game. Along with the superfast formats, Anand has logged in victories at the most elite level of chess winning Linares and Dortmund thrice and the Corsica event five times. As different formats flourished and an increasingly political world played favourites, Bonn turned into Anand’s final frontier. He crossed with imperiousness, and his triumph will carry a long and a loud echo. He stripped the event of its non-essentials and stuck to what he knew best: the art and science of chess.