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Anand has his eye on world crown

For Vishwanathan Anand, the next port of call is the Fontys tournament at Tilberg, in which he will compete for the first time since 1991.

However, the Indian ace says that his sight is fixed on the world championship title.

Now holidaying in his home in Chennai, Anand said that now that it looked certain that the world championship knock out cycle will come off in December in Las Vegas, he would have another go at it.

"I hope to do some good training for it this time, although it is yet to be confirmed," said Anand.

Asked what his strategy would be while preparing, Anand said that having missed it quite narrowly last time, the main thing would be to work on aspects where he slipped up on his last attempt.

Asked what would be the hurdles he was likely to face, he said, "In a knockout format, you have to see that you are not eliminated in the run-up to the ultimate challenge of taking on the reigning champion."

For teen-aged chess prodigy M R Venkatesh, meanwhile, it was a great moment to cherish.

Not just that he had played with Indian grandmaster Vishy Anand, but for forcing an honourable draw against the world number two, who was deprived of a clean sweep by the 13-year-old student of Wesley High School here.

Anand was participating in an exhibition chess tournament along with six wards of the chess talent academy here.

Anand won 5.5-0.5.

The last he played here was in 1991 when he had trounced Alexy Dreev 4.5-1.5.

"There's a lot of future for these young talents," Anand said. "If they're groomed properly, they would become grandmasters and international masters some day soon, it all depends on how we train them, and share our expertise. They should play more tournaments and practice regularly", Anand, who was recently crowned with the Chess Oscar, said.

Venkatesh took him on in the Grunfeld Defence, and forced the draw in 28 moves.

Anand predicted that K Sasikaran would be India's next grandmaster.