IMAGE: Dommaraju Gukesh with Rameshbabu Praggnanandha. {Photograph}: Lennart Ootes/FIDE
Worldwide Chess Federation (FIDE) vice chairman and Indian nice Viswanathan Anand believes that this 12 months’s world championship can occur in Chennai if R Praggnanandhaa wins the Candidates Event to problem defending champion and compatriot D Gukesh in what might be an “emotionally charged” showdown.
The 20-year-old Praggnanandhaa is among the many eight males who could be combating for the fitting to problem the world champion through the Candidates Event in March-April this 12 months. He certified after reaching the very best outcomes throughout 2025 in eligible FIDE tournaments. Gukesh, 19, and Praggnanandhaa have each been mentored by Anand.
Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, Wei Yi, Javokhir Sindarov, Andrey Esipenko, and Matthias Blubaum are the others to have booked a Candidates slot and are sturdy contenders.
“…whoever wins the candidates… they are going to expertise a type of progress and will likely be harmful within the World Championship. I might assume that if Pragg qualifies, that will likely be emotionally charged for each of them,” Anand, who’s right here to advertise his new e-book ‘Lightening Child: 64 successful classes from the boy who turned five-time world champion’ on the ongoing Jaipur Literature Pageant, mentioned on Friday.
“It is not going to be a standard match. It could even occur in Chennai. It could, I imply, they’re each in the identical college, identical this, identical that. And you recognize, the response of everybody round them, that will likely be very emotionally charged, however most likely balanced as a result of it is about the identical for each,” added the 56-year-old nice, who turned India’s first Grandmaster again in 1988.
Chennai final hosted the world showpiece in 2013 when Anand was up towards Norwegian maverick and present world primary Magnus Carlsen. In 2000, Delhi had additionally hosted the world championship when Anand performed towards Spain’s Alexei Shirov.
Anand mentioned that though Gukesh’s conflict with any of the opposite rivals would even be an intriguing one however it could not have the “emotional noise”.
“I believe with the American gamers, Caruana and Nakamura, there are a number of plots right here. You may make extra of a rivalry. These guys will attempt to play thoughts video games. Additionally, they are much older.”
“However with the opposite gamers, I believe, is actually impartial. It is like Javokhir Sindarov or Matthias Bluebaum, somebody in some way will get there. I imply, not that they are possible qualifiers, but when they get there, there is no emotional noise,” he added.
The dates and venue for the world championship are nonetheless to be introduced.
Anand, who describes himself as semi-retired, additionally spoke intimately about his equation with the youthful crop that appears as much as him and the way it feels to go up towards them in competitions just like the Tata Metal Fast and Blitz Championships just a few days in the past in Kolkata.
Requested what retains him going as a participant to this date, Anand mentioned, “As a result of I wish to. I like competing.”
“…in some unspecified time in the future just a few years in the past, I made a decision that competitively or emotionally, I wasn’t up for taking part in the total 12 months and going from match to match as a part of a full circuit.”
“However I appreciated selecting and selecting and saying, I am going to block this match for a few days right here, play some tournaments I discover enticing and compete…this manner I get much more free time. On the identical time, I can nonetheless choose and select my tournaments,” he added.
The charismatic veteran mentioned his equation with the children he has groomed, together with R Vaishali (qualifier to girls’s Candidates), and Arjun Erigaisi, is a respectful bond due to the huge age distinction.
“In fact, there have been many generations youthful than me. However not this a lot youthful. Very often, I realise I am older than their mother and father…there was a time after I met Gukesh, Pragg and Arjun six, seven years in the past. And I realised their mixed age was not but my age,” he quipped.
“However then, what’s our relationship? Am I a legend speaking to them? As a result of then that is very distant. Am I a chess participant? During which case, I am completely equal to them. I imply, in the event that they counsel an excellent transfer, that is an excellent transfer. There is no such thing as a seniority there,” he mentioned.
Regardless of his amiable public persona, Anand mentioned he’s susceptible to anger particularly when outcomes on the chess board do not go his approach.
“Folks say, oh, you’ll be able to play chess for enjoyable, you’ll be able to’t. If I lose six video games, I may be in probably the most lovely location on earth enjoying chess, and I’ve no enjoyable. I am depressing all day,” he mentioned.
“If I win two video games, I may be in some dump, and I am very comfortable…crucially, I would not say that the majority of my profession was sad. It was very comfortable, but it surely was another way.”
“…when you ever begin getting too philosophical about dropping, I imply, the one response that issues is it’s important to be indignant. In any other case, you stop to be a chess participant,” he defined.
The person, who would play 30 video games a day in his prime, additionally recalled being chilly to his rivals and holding a poker face to keep away from being learn by them.
“…after I was enjoying towards them, I did not even wish to take into consideration them, I did not wish to speak to them until the match was over…until the match was over, I couldn’t be pleasant with them,” he mentioned referring to his well-documented rivalries with Russian greats and former world champions like Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik.
“And so we actively averted one another. All the things felt like a taunt. All the things I might say about you felt like a taunt…it is a way of thinking. It’s extremely egocentric. However perhaps it is the character of sport,” he remembered.
“…it is solely afterwards you’ll be able to disconnect. And it is humorous, these days, I get alongside very nicely with Kasparov, for example. However there was a time when, you recognize, we did not actually see eye to eye for a few years.”
