Close on the heels of the World Rapid and Blitz Championship toward the twilight of 2017 the Tal Memorial is one of the early Tournaments on every strong chess Grand Master’s participation schedule. Packed in a crowded field of elite tournaments that start with the Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk Aan Zee (NL) and the Aeroflot Open Moscow hosts another Super GM Tournament under the auspices of the Russian Chess Federation. Hosted at the Museum of Russian Impressionism Vishy sure showed his mettle as the World Rapid Chess Champion in his solid form among the elite Super GMs of World Chess.
The players before start of a round. Courtesy ruchess.ru
It’s one thing winning the World Rapid Chess Championship and much tougher keeping top form at the Tal Memorial among nine deadly adversaries. The younger generation included Karjakin, Nepomniachtchi, Dubov; their seniors in age- Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Alexander (Sasha) Grischuk; and Boris Gelfand, Vladimir Kramnik & Peter Svidler in the 40+ age group with Vishy being the Senior most at 48.
Anand has shown consistent resilience and tenacity over the years to everyone’s awe. Over his years of experience Anand has narrowed things down to the very basics to hone his form and performance at various tournaments he has on his annual schedule. It’s pretty much as simple as doing the same things right time and again, no magic wands just keep ‘crossing T’s’ and ‘dotting the i’s’ all the time. A lot of times that’s exactly what makes a person World Class- keep doing the same things right time after time.
What is to be learn from Anand’s success is how important it is to stick to the basics of all that matters and not making things too complicated. Like for instance, sticking to your preparation. It’s most important to prepare for any tournament so you know your positional pursuits in games- how you will execute a game plan playing white after deeply studying the variations in the openings you are going to focus on; and prepare specific responses as Black to keep the game within the scope of your preparations after studying various continuation and choosing to stick the ones you are most comfortable and can come up with favorable positions. In this tournament Anand prepared a line in the English Opening that he stuck with- after 1.c4 e5 2. Nc3 Bb4 3. Nd5 Anand prepared 3… a5 to deploy at this Tournament. He did not hesitate to repeat the lines in different rounds given that every GM studies the others’ preparations considering all the time he spent preparing would far outweigh anyone’s preparation at theTournament. Similarly Anand prepared lines in the Italian game with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 and he repeated openings in different rounds- like for instance facing Kramnik in Rd 5 with White and settling for a tame draw in 16 moves he repeated the same line against Nakamura in Rd 6 a few minutes after this round. When asked why he’d repeat after not finding previous success Anand replied, “If you try to conjure up something between (between the rounds) you might miss an important point. So I took a deep breath and decided to play the Italian again.”
Secondly, make the most of every opportunity you have on the board. It’s simply about making the move when you see it, and when you don’t find the best move it’s important, to make the most solid move.
For instance, in the position above Anand went for the most solid continuation after calculating the combinations that would secure an advantage- like doubling Rooks on the open ‘g file’. And we’ll see below how that solid continuation leads to the winning combination two moves later.
Anand tries to keep focused between rounds by sticking to a routine – analyze his games, taking walks and sticking to a discipline with his meals. All a part of keeping the focus and form in context.
And all of this boils down to simply believing in yourself. It’s such a key part of staying in the game because no matter what anyone says, one’s self is their own main motivator. After losing to Carlson in their first World Championship Match everyone had about written off Anand and speculating on his retirement. But Anand bounced right back in the next cycle to win to Challenge Carlsen again.
We’ll take a look below at some of Anand’s games from the tournament. The Tiger from Chennai showed his stripes!
The brilliancy and simplicity of Anand’s execution stunned Sasha Grischuk and he sportingly allowed Anand to deliver a mate on the board in stead of resigning.
Sasha Grischuk showing sportsmanship by allowing Anand to do checkmate on the board- in typical Mikahil Tal style. Courtesy ruchess.ru
Here we see Anand sticking to his guns with his opening choices after playing a tame draw against Nepomniachtchi in Rd2.
Anand & Gelfand discussing games over bagels. Courtesy ruchess.ru
