Viswanathan Anand

Viswanathan Anand (41 years), often called Vishy, is an Indian chess grandmaster and since September 2007 the current World Chess Champion and World number one in rating. Born in Chennai, India, now he lives in Spain. His mother taught him how to play chess at the age of six and soon he began attending a chess club in India. When he was fifteen he won the title of International Master. In 1987 he became the first Indian to win the Junior World Championship, a year later the first Grandmaster in India and the first holder of the highest Indian award in sport - Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna.

In 1993 he qualified for the tournament of the candidates for the first time, but he was stopped in the quarterfinal by Analoly Karpov. After several failures he became FIDE World Champion for the first time when he defeated Alexei Shirov in Mexico 2000. His greatest achievements include: FIDE World Champion in the period 2000 - 2002, FIDE World Champion in rapid chess in 2003, the World Champion in 2007, 2008, 2010 and World Champion in rapid chess for 10 times. Among others, Anand is the first player who achieved victory in three major supertournaments: Corus (1998, 2003, 2004, 2006) and Linares (1998, 2007, 2008), Dortmund (1996, 2000, 2004). In 2008 he won supertournament in Mainz after defeating the upcoming chess star Magnus Carlsen. As the current World Champion he will face the winner of the tournament of candidates for the World Chess Championship in 2012.

Vishy Anand is one of five players of the chess history who beat 2800 ELO points. In April 2007, at the age of 37, he became the oldest person who has reached the first position of ELO ranking for the first time in his life. His current ELO rating is 2817.

His hobbies are reading, swimming and listening to the music. He is married to Aruna Anand and they live in Collado Mediano, Spain. At the end of 2010 he was invited to an exclusive dinner hosted by Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to honour of the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama.