Garry Kasparov to visit Chennai for World chess championship

Russian chess master-turned-political activist Garry Kasparov will visit Chennai during the World chess championship on November 11-12

Kasparov will attend a conference at Goa this week and then fly to the southern Indian city to watch the third game of the championships between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen to be played on November 12.

“I am about to head to India, where I will first speak at the THiNK conference in Goa before heading to Chennai to visit the much-anticipated world championship match between defending champion Viswanathan Anand, playing in his native city, and young Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen,” Kasaprov write in Business Insider.

“Carlsen is the favourite because results and objective quality must matter, but it will not be easy and it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which he loses the match,” Kasparov wrote. “Anand has deep experience at every level and that carries with it practical preparation advantages as well as psychological preparedness.”

Kasparov made it clear in his article that he was supporting the young Norwegian. “Some have suggested my rooting loyalties should lie with my fellow “old man,” Anand, and not with the 22-year-old who broke my rating record and who will share my record as youngest world champion ever should he prevail in Chennai,” Kasparov wrote. “But while I cannot say I feel joy when one of my records falls, a win for Carlsen will also be a win for the chess world.”

Antagonistic relationship with Anand

The Russian former world number one and the first to scale the 2850 ELO rating mark in chess had paid a visit to the Moscow edition of the championships last year when Anand had beaten Boris Gelfand, according to PTI.

“What I think with Vishy is that he has lost motivation,” Kasparov had said last year in Moscow, after Anand lost the seventh game, according to the news agency.  The Indian sensation won the eighth game and the match in tiebreakers.

“Kasparov lost his match in 2000 (to Kramnik) and retired in 2005. Then since 2011, he has been trying to make me retire too. He is perhaps missing the attention he used to get as the World champion,” PTI quoted Anand as retorting after the match.

Kasparov is standing against current FIDE administration in the body’s next presidential elections in 2014, the news agency said, adding that there is wide speculation that the Russian has worked for Carlsen for the match against Anand. The agency cited a recent article by Grandmaster Nigel Short, as saying that Kasparov and Carlsen have joined hands again and teamed up for the match against Anand.

Kasparov had trained Carlsen previously too but the Norwegian had found the Russian to be too demanding and bossy and the duo had an amicable split, according to the report

The report speculated that Kasparov's visit could have an effect on Anand, stating that the two have been engaged in verbal wars since last year. Kasparov did help Anand for his match against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in 2010, the news agency said.

Based on reports, published in the Times of India and Business Insider.

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