Anand emulates a 116-year old record

By Our Chess Correspondent

TEHERAN, DEC. 25. The hat-trick of victories which Viswanathan Anand scored to finish off Alexei Shirov 3.5-0.5 on Sunday is the shortest ever World championship match and it was the first time since 1886 that the champion has won three games in a row to finish. Anand, 31, who has improved every year to achieve his career best title, has emulated the feat of the first World champion, William Steinitz.

Winning three games in a World championship match is a unique feat but Shirov needs some credit for bravely fighting and going down. He may lose plenty of Elo points but would receive his career best purse.

Anand had won three games in a row at Chennai when he beat Alexei Dreev of Russia in the Candidates match but it was not for the title. Karpov won three games against Kasparov at Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1986 but he did not win the title, only reduced the deficit.

Anand believes that the future of chess lies in short World title matches. He has refrained from commenting on the legitimacy of Kramnik's title although but said that victory was a big achievement.

Monday was largely a quiet day here with Anand doing most of the talking to the reporters here. The Anand storm has hit the chess world and the big historic day in Indian chess would always be December 24, 2000.

Alexander Khalifman, the dethroned FIDE champion said the title had brought him more fame than he thought and he was getting greater attention. If that was the attention for a man in a country with several World champions, Anand, being the first Asian, is going to be written and talked about in public for a very long period of time.

Anand to skip Linares

Anand's next engagement is at Wijk aan Zee from January 12. He would also play in the Amber Tournament from March 15. He has signed to play the Advanced Tournament in June 2001 as also the Frankfurt Chess Classic. Events which he would sign for in future should have an enhanced fee as his new image would lend the tournament more prestige.

He revealed to the The Hindu that he would not play the Linares tournament this February. ``We can follow it from Chennai on the Internet,'' he said. Anand, who has been saying this for some years now, is going to send them a fax about his pullout. The tourney, which usually boasts of the best six players in the world, will be without a former winner and current FIDE World champion.

The next FIDE Championship will have a new format. It will be a series of four tournaments from which eight will be selected to play for the World title. FIDE has not yet settled on the system for deciding a champion and hence the fluidity. This and other important FIDE decisions are to be taken on Tuesday in the Board Meeting here.

The prize money for both players would amount to $ One million dollars of which FIDE will have a 20% cut. Anand will receive more than $ 500,000, which is less than his best - the one from Lausanne 1998. It will be more that Rs. 2 crores. Shirov will receive in excess of $ 300,000.

lThe World Champions: 1. W. Steinitz, 2. E. Lasker, 3. J.R. Capablanca, 4 A. Alekhine, 5 M. Euwe, 6. M. Botvinnik, 7. V. Smyslov, 8. M. Tal, 9. T. Petrosian, 10. B. Spassky, 11. R.J. Fischer, 12. A. Karpov, 13. G. Kasparov, 14. A. Khalifman, 15. V. Kramnik and 16. V. Anand.

Note: FIDE does not include V. Kramnik for he beat the breakaway champion G. Kasparov and maintains the count as 15.

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