Vishy Anand: My Best Games of Chess

by Viswanathan Anand

Vishy Anand is the strongest chess player ever to come from India, and is currently rated number two in the world, with Kasparov in his sights. His friendly, unpretentious personality makes him extremely popular with chess players around the world. In this, his first book, he presents detailed and entertaining commentaries to forty of his best games. Anand's ability to get to the heart of complex positions, which makes him a deadly opponent over the board, comes across extremely well in his notes, which will amply repay careful study. This book flowing attack masterpieces explained logically step-by-step; anecdotes from top-level events; practical hints from a world-championship challenger; game introducions that set each game in its practical context; and thirty puzzle positions to test your skill.

Genres: Chess

Paperback

Published June 1, 1998

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I'm sure everyone noticed, Anand won the final game of the World Chess Championship match against Topalov last week, and retained his title. Go Vishy!



The critical moment occurred at move 31. Anand had played extremely accurately as Black, and converted a slight disadvantage into noticeable pressure against White's king. His last move had been ...f5, attacking the centre. It was now essential for White to retreat his knight from c4 to d2, strongpointing the pawn on e4 and restraining the bishop that was lurking on a8. Instead, I simply couldn't believe it when Topalov took on f5, gratuitously opening the bishop's diagonal! Rather like the scene in Roller Coaster Rabbit when Roger steps into the sights of fifty guns and happily tells everyone to blast away.

Anand obliged with the more-than-obvious ...e4, and Topalov's kingside was instantly full of holes. He defended with great ingenuity, but had to resign 25 moves later. One of the most dramatic finishes ever to a World Championship match. If you want the full story, look at the excellent writeup on Chessbase. There's a link at the bottom to a page where you can click through all the moves.

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According to the write-up in New In Chess, Topalov's 31. ef wasn't the obvious blunder it appeared to be. If the position had been slightly different - for example, if Black's rook had been on e8 instead of d8 - it would have been a good move. Black really needs the follow-on ... Qe8 after he's chased White's king to h3.

It seems that the people who play world championship matches are rather better than us amateurs. What a surprise!

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvelous games (and much more interesting--and tactical!--than I thought they were going to be). Unfortunately though the notes--or annotational style, at any rate--soon became rather monotonous. A couple of items in particular show up far too frequently: "The alternatives are..." and the term "unclear" (although at least at one point he does acknowledge that that is a mere cop-out). And I did get a chuckle out of: "The alternatives make for grim reading." At any rate, he seems more down-to-earth than you'd expect a player of that level to be and less given to flights to ego (although such moments were there on occasion). One more annoyance: him saying that he'd had a great position (in some game or other) but spoiled it by a silly blunder grew tiresome.