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Viswanathan Anand (born December 11, 1969) is an Indian chess
grandmaster. In the July 2004 FIDE Elo rating list, Anand has a rating of 2782,
making him number two in the world (behind Garry Kasparov).
"Vishy" as he is sometimes called, achieved his first great international success winning the World Junior Chess Championship in 1987, and burst upon the upper echelons of the chess scene in the early 1990s, winning such
prestigious tournaments as the Reggio Emilla 1991 (ahead of Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov, who were in peak form). What made his performance in these early years of his career all the
more shocking was that he would often play entire games at blitz speed.
In 1995, Anand played Kasparov for the Professional Chess Association World Chess Championship in New York
City's World Trade Center. After an opening run of eight
draws (a record for the opening of a world championship match), Anand won game nine but then lost four of the next five. He lost
the match 10.5 - 7.5.
In 2000, he won the FIDE World Chess Championship after beating Alexey Shirov, 3.5 - 0.5, in the final match.
In October 2003, Anand won the Cap d'Agde tournament ahead of ten of the other top twelve players in the world (the missing
player was Kasparov). The event was billed by the governing body of chess, FIDE, as the
World Rapid Chess Championship (each player had 25 minutes at the start of the game, with an additional 10 seconds after each
move).
Anand enjoys celebrity status in his home country akin to that of top cricket players. He has been among the top five rated chess players for a decade, and in the top three for
most of that time.
He won the prestigious Corus chess tournament both
in 2003 and 2004.
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