Anand seeks Bonn supremacy

Anand spoke to The Indian Express about his preparations for the match against Kramnik, and about his huge online following.

Excerpts:

•How different will your world title match against Vladimir Kramnik be?

It will be different from Mexico City the last time, where I faced eight other contenders. At Bonn it will be a one-on-one against Kramnik over 12 games. So our teams are preparing their strategies only on one player. Though you are working on fewer areas, you need to go deeper into them.

•Are you and your team planning anything special for him?

I’ve been playing Kramnik since 1989. That’s almost two decades. We’ll each be trying to find something new in the coming months to use against the other guy. But you have to weigh the risks and decide what to go for and what not to try, and anticipate what your opponent will be planning.

•Happy with your team?

Pretty much, but I won’t rule out changes. I can’t reveal too much but I can tell you that after my second at Mexico, Peter Heine Nielsen will be in Bonn, unless he’s changed his mind.

•How do you rate your chances?

Pretty much the same as over the years as we’ve been quite evenly matched in our head-to-heads, and in our good and bad years. It’s very close. I think we’ve both been in the top 4-5 in the rating lists. We won’t be trying to tweak too many things, but of course, he’s a formidable match opponent and things should be 50-50.

It will be important to get there and deal with the tension of the match. Things like how you handle taking or losing the lead, having the stamina after six games, etc are some of the areas I’m working on.

•How important is stamina?

I think 12 games should be fine, if you remember my duel with Kasparov, it was over 20. But I haven’t played a match in some time, so that’s a bit of a concern. But in the coming months, I’ll be not only working on my game, but also physical fitness. In the last two games, the physical part probably makes all the difference between winning and losing. As the tension keeps mounting in the final stages, a single mistake and it’s all over.

•It’s been a great year, hasn’t it?

Yes, it’s funny because not that the other years were bad. I had a good 2003-04. But a lot of milestones have been crossed in the last year. Being the world No.1 is something I had always missed. I was very close at many points in 2006, like before the list came out, there were certain days when I was world number one and then it fell out. I claimed the world title at Mexico City relatively smoothly. I won with a whole point to spare and that is a pretty comfortable cushion. Then I won Linares again after many years and all this came in the same period and that is difficult to replicate in any other year.

•Were you desperate to win in 2007?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want it.

First, it was not possible to win a world championship because there wasn’t one. There was chaos in the chess world between 2002 and 2005. So I concentrated on other things like rapid events and won every single event I played except one. I became world rapid champion, won Corsica but I was doing well in the classical events too. But in terms of absolute mega milestones, 2007 was the big one.

Now I’m more relaxed, but that’s to be avoided as I’ve got an important championship coming up. If you get this feeling that you’ve accomplished everything it’s very easy to drift and then Kramnik would be very difficult to overcome and so you need to have this feeling of wanting to win. I imagine he’s very hungry as he lost his title in Mexico and now he’s got a second chance.

•Chess being a mind sport, do you wish you had played something like tennis or football with 20,000 fans roaring in the stands?

Our online audience is often quite large maybe 50,000 to 60,000 people. So in the virtual sense we have a huge fan-following despite not playing in stadiums. I’ve watched tournaments online when others have been playing and believe me, the atmosphere is fantastic. Everyone is whispering to each other and they’ve got their engines going and suggesting moves and so on. It’s very interesting to live in a time when the personal computer revolution is on and it has been opening so many new doors.

•Can chess be made a more television-friendly sport?

It could go well on TV if you just moved the online model with some modifications to it.

•Could we get to see your title clash on prime time TV?

Ask the Bonn organisers. They have some interesting plans for it.