Viswanathan Anand

Viswanathan Anand is not only one of the greatest chess players the world has ever seen, he has arguably had the greatest influence on it. This might seem like hyperbole to anyone familiar with the tremendous media interest generated by the 1972 match for the World Championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. But consider this: the world had a lot fewer people in it compared to today. Factor this in and then take a look at the impact Anand has had on chess in India and its close 1.5 billion people.

When Anand came up in the mid-1980s India had no Grandmasters and only a handful of International Masters. Fast forward four decades and the world’s most populous country has undergone a chess explosion with close to 100 Grandmasters including the reigning World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju. Indian took first place in both the Open and Women’s competition in the 2024 Budapest Chess Olympiad.

The man who helped all this happen was Viswanathan Anand, a five-time World Chess Champion, a two-time World Rapid Chess Champion, a two-time Chess World Cup Champion, a World Blitz Chess Cup Champion and six-time Chess Oscar Winner.

Anand became World Chess Champion by winning the FIDE World Championship in 2000, defeating Alexei Shirov in the final. This was at a time when the World Championship was divided. He later became undisputed World Champion in 2007, a title he held until 2013. Anand defeated Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov and Boris Gelfand in title matches cementing his claim as one of the top six players of all time.