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The Greatness of Viswanathan Anand

Question: Which Indian GM can replace Vishy Anand?

Answer: In a recent interview, Viswanathan Anand likened the the proliferation of chess Grandmasters in India to a “snowball effect.” This common analogy couldn’t be more fitting for how the Anand Effect has so rapidly increased the popularity and skill level of chess in his native India. Just as a snowball rolling down a snow-covered hillside will pick up more snow, gaining more mass, surface area, and momentum as it rolls along. So has the contributions of India’s first chess Grandmaster given birth to a national super force in chess.

After learning chess from his mother at the age of six, Viswanathan Anand took immediate interest in the game. With the continued support of his family, Anand’s ascent in the Indian chess world was brilliant. National level achievements came just eight years later when Anand scored a perfect 9/9 at the 1983 Indian National Sub-Junior Chess Championship. A year later Vishy won the FIDE Asian Junior Championship and was awarded his first International Master norm. One year later, Anand returned to the FIDE Asian Junior Championship to win the event for the second straight time and pickup his final IM norm to become the youngest International Master in the history of India. In 1987, he became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship and the age of 18, Viswanathan Anand became India’s first Grandmaster.

Achieving the Grandmaster title was just the beginning for Anand’s professionalhttps://www.quora.com/Which-Indian-GM-can-replace-Vishy-Anand/answer/Chris-Torres-13?ch=10&share=27fa0f84&srid=i4Sz

Published by chessmusings

Chris Torres is a nationally renowned scholastic chess coach working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His classes have attracted players of strengths ranging from rank beginners to world champions. A chess professional since 1998, Chris is widely recognized as one of the main driving forces behind the explosion in popularity and sudden rise in quality of scholastic chess in California. Chris Torres served as the President of the Torres Chess and Music Academy from 2005-2020 and currently is recognized as a correspondence chess master with the United States Chess Federation. Since 1998 Chris Torres has taught 6 individual national champions as well as led multiple school teams to win national championship titles. In addition, Chris Torres has directed and taught at 10 different schools which have been California State Champions at chess. In 2011 and 2012, several former and current students of Chris Torres have been selected to represent the United States at the World Youth Chess Championships. Mr. Torres’ hobbies include playing classical guitar and getting his students to appear on the national top 100 chess rating lists.

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