The past month has given ample evidence of how bright the future of Indian chess is, with D Gukesh rising to the India No 1 spot and R Praggnanandha making it to the final of the prestigious FIDE World Cup.
But besides their current form and results, what other aspects will separate the upcoming generation of chess players?
“A certain amount of fanaticism,” believes Viswanathan Anand, India’s first grandmaster.
“If they’re very young, I want to see a certain amount of fanaticism. I think fanaticism is good when you’re in your teens, but quite a few of them have that,” said the five-time world champion on the Conversations with Tyler podcast.
While talking specifically about Pragg and Gukesh, he went on to add: “I think maturity is maybe the most important thing because Pragg and Gukesh have taken some horrible blows. What I’ve realized is that they’re quite strong in a way that I’m amazed, maybe because for me, losing hurts so much more. I can no longer understand people who are relaxed about losing. Maybe I was once more relaxed, I don’t know. Pragg and Gukesh both have taken some of the tough times recently quite well and come out of it. Now they’re both going gangbusters, and that’s great, but they’ve had difficult times as well.”
Bad at losing, good at acting
Anand was also asked by the host Tyler Cowen if he was bad at losing. To this, he replied: “When I lose, I can’t imagine anyone in the world who loses as badly as I do inside… A couple of years ago, whenever people would say, ‘But how are you such a good loser?’ I’d say, ‘I’m not a good loser. I’m a good actor.’ I know how to stay composed in public. I can even pretend for five minutes, but I can only do it for five minutes because I know that once the press conference is over, once I can finish talking to you, I can go back to my room and hit my head against the wall because that’s what I’m longing to do now.
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“In fact, it’s gotten even worse because as you get on, you think, ‘I should have known that. I should have known that. I should have known not to do that. What is the point of doing this a thousand times and not learning anything?’ You get angry with yourself much more. I hate losing much more, even than before.”
Anand was also asked if he looked at players like World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura, who regularly streams himself while analysing games, and thinks that he could do the same if he was younger right now.
“I can imagine being a streamer now very easily, but what I don’t see myself doing is spending all night playing. Also, I don’t feel like playing that much blitz… I easily see myself trying streaming or something, but it’s a question of how long you want to invest in it. Again, success is not going to come very fast. There’re a lot of crocodiles already in that watering hole. You’ll have to spend quite some time and do stuff daily, and things like that. It’s a big time commitment. I could very easily see myself doing it,” he said before pointing out that over the last few years he had done a lot of video content such as online coaching, motivational talks for companies and even commentary.
indianexpress.com
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