Viswanathan Anand Quotes

The fact is he outplayed me. He just proved to be stronger.

Age is part of it. For instance, I recognise that [Carlsen] is going to do certain things because he's 22 and there are certain things I can do because I'm 43.

But perhaps they were thrown off by my playing style, which was intuitive-and perhaps a little influenced by Vodka. I ran away with the match early. The result was overwhelmingly in my favour: four wins, five draws and only one loss –an annihilation. The Russians were stunned . I was pretty surprised myself.

I can relate to many of the emotions they describe...But personally I just like to get on with the job of playing chess. I understand that if I win, I'm probably crushing my opponent's ego but it's not like I do that with great satisfaction. So I don't really look for conflict around the game … It's true that someone like Kasparov has this sense of history, and I'm talking world history rather than chess history. He has a sense of himself being in it, which, for me, is very hard to understand or even relate to in any way.

When I first visited Moscow in the late 1980s, I was so intimidated. I thought I could be checkmated by every cabdriver.

When you lose, you really feel a sense of self … You actually feel that you are being taken apart, rather than just your pieces.

One of the things I bring to my play is my Indian identity – my ability to shrug off a loss as destiny and hope for better tomorrow. I am often described as a “natural” or “intuitive player”.

I learned to play fast without agonizing about strategy or overanalyzing individual moves

I have what I think is an extremely Indian relationship with God....In Moscow before the tie breaker of the World Championship in May 2012, I again entreated God:Just stay on my side of the board.

I wasn't expecting him to be a gracious, so fair enough. The winner can say anything when he wins... so I guess we will just have to swallow it for now.

Anything unusual that you can produce has quadruple, quintuple the value, precisely because your opponent is likely to do the predictable stuff, which is on a computer.

My dream is chess played in every school in India. The Soviets would include a chessboard along with the bride’s trousseau to ensure that the children born of that marriage knew the rules of chess.

Since the 1990s technology has taken some of the sheen off the Russian trainers and their methods.

To become a world chess champion.

You would have to sit at the board and sweat and feel the fear of defeat or the nearness of victory to understand what goes through a player's head … If you think it's that easy, switch off the computer and try and figure out a few moves on your own.