Viswanathan Anand, or Vishy as he is affectionately called by many, is considered one of the world’s greatest rapid chess players of his generation. His accomplishments don’t end there, yet he does not wish to add more feathers to his already heavy cap.
“I already stopped [playing],” Anand says at a recent masterclass in Chennai, “I played this cycle last in 2019; I didn’t play in the subsequent competitions. My thing is to play occasionally, just to have my knuckles touch with the sense of competition. I don’t expect to play the whole year round, or be a full time professional. The one big project in my mind is the Westbridge-Anand chess academy [which I’ve been running] for almost two years. I’m also joining Arkady Dvorkovich’s presidential team in FIDE. If we get elected next month, it will be an important project.”
Despite closing this professional chapter in his life, Anand is still very involved in the Indian chess scene. He has opinions on the latest additions to Indian chess: “I like the fact that D Gukesh has got some attention. You want to stress that he is one player who has increased his ELO rating steadily and now has crossed 2,700, a couple of times already.”
