The Candidates is touching its halfway mark and there’s a 17-year-old Indian sharing the lead. Two more players from the country are close behind in the standings. Getting here has taken time and a fair bit of bloody-mindedness. Most of it tracks down to one guy from Madras.
Thirty-three years ago, the notion of an Indian breaking into the Soviet stronghold of elite chess was nearly inconceivable. Viswanathan Anand did it anyway. He was 21 when he played his first Candidates match. His hometown, Madras (now Chennai), served as the venue for his match against Soviet player Alexsey Dreev in January 1991. Anand finished with a commanding 4.5-1.5 win at the Trident Hotel to qualify for the Candidates quarterfinals.
Around the same time as Anand’s win, Dibyendu Barua became India’s second Grandmaster. “We had seen nothing like it before,” said Barua, “The concept of two chess players in a one-on-one encounter was new to most of us. India hosting a Candidates match, an Indian in the World Championship race. It was a huge deal. Back then I don’t think we fully grasped what it meant.”
Anand lost in the quarterfinals to Anatoly Karpov in Brussels. But a spark had been kindled.
“Before Anand, Indian players didn’t aspire for the World Championship. Anand was younger than me but as the second Indian GM after him, perhaps his success had a more direct influence on my ambitions. I played the 1993 Biel Interzonal (interzonal winners played knockout Candidates matches) and came close to qualifying before I fumbled. It was a tough tournament to navigate alone. I had no seconds/trainers; I couldn’t afford one. Temperamentally, I struggled to cope with the demands of such a tough event.”
Anand finished 10th in the Biel Interzonal and qualified for the Fide Candidates cycle. Sanghinagar, an industrial township in Hyderabad hosted the 1994-95 quarterfinals and semifinals. Sponsored by Sanghi Industries at a reported budget of ₹3 crores, it had some of the top players – Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, Jan Timman, Boris Gelfand, Gata Kamsky, Valery Salov and Anand, descend onto the sleepy suburb. The official brochure painted quite the picture: ‘The road to Sanghinagar is steeped in history. It scythes off the highway where regal caravans once passed on their way to the erstwhile royal state of Hyderabad, and cleaves through a vast plain dwarfed by towering mountains, whose summits are crowned with huge boulders, precariously balanced on top of each other, as if hurled there by a playful group of giants long ago.’
At the end of five games, Anand was in a comfortable 3.5-1.5 lead against Soviet-born American GM Kamsky in the quarterfinals and the press and fans assembled to catch a glimpse of India’s rising chess superstar.
Trailing by two points with three games to go, Kamsky shared his predicament in his book ‘Awakening’: “My team which consisted of my father, GM Dzindzichashvili and a local Indian cook provided by the organisers, was not in great spirits… One typical thing my father would do was – while teaching the Indian cook how to prepare a Russian meal he would run upstairs to the second floor, where Dzindzi and I were trying to come up with ideas to keep my chances alive and suggest about ten moves in as many seconds.”
GM Pravin Thipsay, who was in Sanghinagar at the time, offering insights on the match for India’s public service broadcaster Doordarshan, had to rely heavily on his memory and instincts for analysis. “We didn’t have computer engines to analyse then, nor could you check with the players. Referring to a new move was almost impossible since there were no well-developed databases then. Though none of us were as strong as the participants, we were largely accurate in spotting mistakes,” said Thipsay. There was jubilation in the air at Anand’s huge lead and a win seemed like a formality. “A party was thrown by the organisers perhaps after the fifth game. Only Kamsky and his father didn’t show up. Lights were on in their bungalow, perhaps they were working.”
In a surprising turn of events, Kamsky won the next two games to even scores. The eighth game was drawn and Kamsky struck in the two rapid playoff games that followed, to defeat Anand. It came as a shock to the Indian who later spoke of ‘relaxing too early’ in the match.
Less than a year later, Anand avenged his defeat in the PCA Candidates tournament final in Las Palmas, Spain. Anand roundly defeated Kamsky and qualified for his first World Championship against Garry Kasparov in 1995.
His first World Championship title arrived only five years later, in 2000. He went on to become world champion four more times and got generations after him to dream what once seemed like an impossible dream.
Round 6 results
Open
Gukesh D (4) drew Hikaru Nakamura (3)
Vidit Gujrathi (3) beat Alireza Firouzja (1.5)
Praggnanandhaa R (3.5) beat Nijat Abasov (1.5)
Ian Nepomniachtchi (4) drew Fabiano Caruana (3.5)
Women
Vaishali R lost (2.5) to Kateryna Lagno (3.5)
Koneru Humpy (2) lost to Lei Tingjie (3)
Tan Zhongyi (4.5) beat Anna Muzychuk (2)
Nurgyul Salimova (2.5) lost to Aleksandra Goryachkina (4)
Round 7 pairings
Open
Hikaru Nakamura- Ian Nepomniachtchi
Fabiano Caruana – Praggnanandhaa R
Nijat Abasov – Vidit Gujrathi
Alireza Firouzja – Gukesh D
Women
Kateryna Lagno – Nurgyul Salimova
Aleksandra Goryachkina – Tan Zhongyi
Anna Muzychuk – Humpy Koneru
Lei Tingjie – Vaishali R
