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Waiting for Anand to be crowned king

Ram Prasad

Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand is 30 today. Since he won't be playing in tournaments until next year, it seems a good time to look back on his performance during 1999.

What happened at the beginning of this year, in January - at the Wijk Aan Zee tournament, perfectly summarises the Grandmaster's performance for the whole year.

Even after an amazing a six-win-and-no-loss performance Anand couldn't clinch the first spot. Garry Kasparov held on tenaciously as the leader and edged him out by 0.5 points - the narrowest possible margin.

The biggest chess news this year was the agreement between Anand and Kasparov to play the Ultimate World Chess Championships (UWCC) match. The event was to have taken place in October, but has been postponed to sometime early next year.

About a month after the tournament in Wijk Aan Zee, Anand, Kasparov and six other top-notch GMs played in Linares, which was touted as the 'Wimbledon of Chess.' Once again, Kasparov came out on top as the winner, and again Anand took the second spot. Anand suffered only one loss - at the hands of Kasparov.

The principality of Monaco is famous in chess circles for its annual Amber tournament - where they never play standard games. Anand is a regular fixture in these Blindfold and Rapid games. He won the Rapid Chess category this year.

In the decade-and-a half that he has been competing, he has almost never finished last in a tournament. However, in the Dos Hermanas tournament held in April, he did just that. He lost two games and never managed to score a win. It later became known that frantic negotiations for UWCC were going on even as the Dos Hermanas tournament was under way. Later, when asked in an interview if those negotiations were the cause for his lacklustre performance in Dos Hermanas, Anand refused to use that as an excuse. He just said that he was tired after a little too much chess in the previous months.

Then in May, he won the Chess Oscar award for his 1998 performance. The Russian chess magazine '64' hosts the award by asking chess journalists vote for the winner. Anand won it for a record second time in a row. Given his stellar performance in 1998, it was unquestionable that he emerged the winner.

After resting for a while following the Dos Hermanas debacle, Anand played the then FIDE champion Anatoly Karpov in a six-game match of 'Advanced Chess'. With computers assisting both players Anand simply blew away Karpov, who seemed ill-prepared for the encounter.

Since he had agreed to play in the Ultimate WCC with Kasparov, he didn't compete in the World Chess Championship, organized by FIDE. The FIDE contract has clauses prohibiting playing in other World Championship matches.

Anand pretty much stayed away from competitive chess in the second half of 1999. Presumably, he was busy preparing to face Kasparov for their much awaited 16-game encounter. Unfortunately, the negotiations for holding the match got mired in problems that seem to hound high-level chess. The promoters have postponed it to early 2000.

In chess, statistics can reveal an awful lot. Anand's performance for 1999 in terms of numbers is presented below. Though the minor fluctuations in Elo-rating points don't mean much, very few will argue against the fact that Anand is firmly entrenched as world number two.

Which inevitably begs the question - when will he be crowned king? We may not even have to wait till UWCC next year to get a feel for the possible outcome. The next Wijk Aan Zee is slated to be held in early 2000, where Anand and Kasparov will be among those clashing.

Even as he turns 30, let us hope that he gets to grasp the coveted title that eluded him in his twenties.

Anand's record for 1999

Tournaments with Standard Time & Format

Tournament	Won	Lost	Draw	Total
Hoogevens	+6	-0	=7	13
Linares	+3	-1	=10	14
Dos Hermanas	+0	-2	=7	9
Dortmund	+1	-0	=6	7
ECC	+1	-0	=1	2
Total	+11	-3	=31	45

Tournaments with Non-standard times/formats

Tournament	Won	Lost	Draw	Total
Frankfurt Classic	+2	-2	=8	12
Adv. chess	+4	-0	=2	6
Amber Blindfold:	+0	-3	=8	11
Amber Rapid:	+5	-1	=5	11