GM Anand Viswanathan

Born in Chennai on December 11th 1969, Viswanathan Anand began his training in chess at the age of six from his mother Susheela. She gave him his first lessons in chess. His father Viswanathan after whose name Anand is fondly called as Vishy is a railway executive. Destiny crowned him with success at the tender age of fourteen when he won the National Sub Juniors Championship in 1983. Since then a string of victory ensued with him winning many more titles. The 'Lightining Kid was conferred on him for his speedy play.

He has been a World Championship challenger in the PCA (New York 1995) & FIDE (1997 Lausanne) cycles. He has also the credit of winning the Strongest knock out tournament in Groningen in December 1997 and the Linares super Torneo in 1998. The Melody Amber tournament (1994 & 1997), the Credit Suisse Masters (1997), Dos Hermanas (1997) and Wijk Aan Zee (1998) are his other noted victories. According to the rating lists of PCA and FIDE Anand has ranked as the second best chess player in the world.


Anand's recent success include the Corus Chess Tournament in the years 2003, 2004 and 2006, Dortmund in 2004 and The Monaco Amber Blind fold and the Rapid Chess Championship in the years 1994, 1997, 2003, 2005 and 2006.

Titles
The titles won by Anand are

1. 1983 National Sub-Junior Chess Champion
2. 1984 International Master
3. 1985 Indian National Champion
4. 1987 World Junior Chess Champion, Grandmaster
5. 2000 FIDE World Chess Champion
6. 2003 FIDE World Rapid Chess Champion

Awards
Anand is the winner of many a prestigious award like

1. Arjuna award in 1985
2. Padma Sri, National Citizen's award, Soviet Land Nehru award in 1987
3. Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991-1992
4. Padma Bushan in 2000
5. Chess Oscar in 1997, 1998, 2003 and 2004.

Anand has also won the 'Book Of The Year' award for his book 'My Best Games Of Chess' in 1998 by the British Chess Federation.

Source: http://living.oneindia.in