Mumbai, May 23 (UNI) The five-time World Champion, Viswanathan Anand is set to appear on the upcoming episode of Star Sports 1 Tamil show Mind Masters by MFORE on Sunday, where he will talk about the importance of mind skills training and how it helped him as a chess player.
The Chennai Ace is currently held up in Germany where he was participating in Bundesliga Chess and recently participated an online chess exhibition to raise funds for PM Cares amidst the COVID-19 situation.
In the upcoming episode, Viswanathan Anand gets candid with host and former Indian cricketer S Badrinath and talks about his illustrious career spanning 35 years - starting from his initial days to finally being considered as one of the elite Indian sporting legends.
Reflecting on his early days in chess, Anand said, 'I was six years old when my older brother and sister were playing chess, and then I went to my mom and asked her to teach me as well. My progress as a chess player wasn’t sudden, it came through lots of hard work over many years. The chess I learnt in the 80s, we no longer play chess like that.'
'The introduction of computers has changed the approach, the way you study completely. Only the two players in front of the board has not changed,' he added.
The show also features chess-player-turned-cricketer Yuzuvendra Chahal, Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa and Anand’s wife, Aruna. While Chahal talk about his love for chess, Aruna Anand speaks about her husband and their journey together.
Talking about the importance of mind skills in Chess, the ace player said, ' In chess, you don’t beat the board. It’s more important to beat the player on the other side. Everyone thinks you make the best moves, but it’s more about who makes the last mistake on the board. You need to constantly put yourself in the minds of the opponents and study their game along with your own.'
'You cannot pump your fist and there’s no emotional release in a game like chess. After a game I always go to the gym not for fitness but to calm down and the stress goes away, ' he added.
During the show, Anand also picked two of the most important tournaments of his career that brought him great satisfaction.
'Winning the first World Junior in 1987 was a match I will never forget, the feeling of overcoming the Russians gave me great pride. And, winning the World Rapid Chess Championship in 2017, at a time in my career when I was contemplating retirement, that win came just at the right time and gave me great satisfaction, he said.
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