Lesser Known Facts about Viswanathan Anand

Indian chess Grandmaster and Former World Champion Viswanathan Anand celebrated his 46th birthday. Anand has not only been the king while playing chess, but has been king outside of chess too. Just recently he showed an example of it by opening the doors of his house for the victims of Chennai floods. We bring you some other lesser known facts, which prove he’s a king in real life too.

It might surprise you, but Viswanathan Anand has a planet named after him. “4538 Vishyanand” is a minor planet which is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. He’s the only Indian sportsperson to have a planet after him and is a part of elite list consisting of people like Roger Federer, Jesse Owens, Arsene Wenger, Anatoly Karpov, Alexander Alekhine and Donald Bradman after whom planets have been named.

2. Slow and Steady wins the race

While playing a Rapid Chess match, Anand took 1:43 minutes to play one of his moves, which was almost 35% of his total time. It was his 4th move in a world blitz semifinal in 1994 against Ilya Smirin. Astonishingly, he still went on to win the match courtesy of his amazing skills. Watch the video here, and keep a check on the commentary.

Viswanathan Anand while travelling in a train, had a strange encounter. The details of which he given it himself

“I was once travelling by train to Kerala after I turned professional and an elderly gentleman asked me what I did. I told him that I make my living playing chess. He advised me that sports is not a rewarding career,” Anand recalled.
“Though he did not know my name, he said ‘You can’t make good money unless you are Viswanathan Anand‘. I broke into a laugh, but didn’t tell him who I was”.

An ad inspired from this very incident:

Viswanathan Anand was the only Indian Sportsperson who was invited for the dinner hosted by Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh for the President of United States Barack Obama on 7th November, 2010. Apart from this, Anand was also the first Indian sportsperson, before Sachin Tendulkar, to receive the highest sporting honour of the country, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991-92, and the second highest civilian honour Padma Vibhushan in 2007.

The shortest game in World Chess Championships, which lasted 17 moves, was played between Anand and Boris Gelfand in 2012 Game 8. Watch how Anand traps Gelfand’s Queen for his Rook and Gelfand immediately resigns.

Apart from speaking in Tamil and English, Viswanathan Anand can also speak French, German and Spanish. Madrid, the capital of Spain, was Anand’s base till 2011, after which he settled town in his hometown of Chennai, following the birth of his son Akhil.

Olympic Gold Quest is an organisation for promoting and supporting India’s elite sportspersons and potential young talent started by former India Badminton player Prakash Padukone and billiards player Geet Sethi. In August of 2010, Anand joined Olympic Gold Quest’s Board of Directors with Tennis player Leander Paes. Former Hockey Olympian, Viren Rasquinha is the COO of OGC.

Viswanathan Anand has been a recipient of Chess Oscars for 6 times, that is, in years 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008. It is awarded to the best chess player in the year and it is based on a poll by chess critics, writers, and journalists conducted by the Russian chess magazine 64.

In 2014, Anand was conferred with Russian Order of Friendship award for the development of economic, scientific and cultural ties with Russia. It was awarded to him along with Boris Gelfand. In 2015, Anand was given the top country award at the Spanish embassy, Delhi on January 8. The award is given to people of Indian origin who have brought glory to both India as well as Spain.

Many of you might not know, but Anand has always written a book named ‘My Best Games of Chess’. For the same book, Anand received ‘Book of the Year’ award from British Chess Federation in 1998.