Negi, Humpy share limelight with Anand in memorable year

Undated, Dec 23 (UNI) For once, a year bygone in Indian chess is not all about Viswanathan Anand. With the trio of Krishnan Sasikiran, P Harikrishna and Koneru Humpy, and not to forget youngest Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi coming of age, the genius, the country's lone warrior in the 64-square game for almost two decades, had some worthy compatriots to share the limelight.

Anand's record fifth triumph at Chorus Chess Tournament in January set the tone right and in December, Humpy along with Harikrishnan and Sasikiran won two gold and as many silver medals in the Doha Asian Games to round off a memorable year.

Humpy won women's rapid chess event to give India their first gold in the games and then teamed up with Sasikiran and Harikrishna to win the mixed team event and finish the year on a high.

However, the ball started rolling at Wijk Aan Zee in January when Anand made history by becoming the only player ever to win this tournament a record five times. This win also gave Anand a vital 13 ELO points taking his ELO rating to 2805, thereby crossing the magic 2800 ELO point marker -- a summit achieved before by only Gary Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Veslin Topalov.

This was just the beginning, Anand went on to become the joint winner at 15th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament before beating World Champion Topalov of Bulgaria to win 19th Magistral Ciudad de Leon Chess tournament -- his sixth triumph at Leon. Arguably the best player on the planet in the rapid form of the game, Anand put doubts, if any, to rest when in August, he won Grenkeleasing World Rapid Championship -- his sixth title in a row.

His Mainz Chess Classic win was also his seventh in succession and ninth overall -- clearly a record that seems unlikely to bettered in near future.

Vishy had not had enough and in Mikhail Tal Memorial Blitz Tournament, Moscow the super grandmaster was in ominous form. Anand scored a whopping 23 points out of a possible 34 and won 11 out of 17 mini-matches to claim the strongest Blitz tournament in the history of the game, beating his nearest rival, Levon Aronian of Armenia by a comprehensive two point margin.

Not all was hunky-dory although and India, who were ranked second in the 37th Chess Olympiad, finished a poor 30th despite having been represented by none other than Anand besides Surya Shekhar Ganguly.

In the meanwhile, other players also made their mark notable among them was Parimarjan Negi. On July 1, at the age of 13 years, four months, and 22 days, he became the second youngest Grandmaster ever, second only to Sergey Kajakin when he earned his third and final GM norm at the Chelyabinsk Region Superfinal Championship at Satka in Russia.

Among women, WGM Tania Sachdev of Delhi was crowned the new national champion ahead of D Harika of Andhra Pradesh.

UNI DH PM BD1221