President Patil congratulates Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand

New Delhi, Oct 30 : President Pratibha Patil today congratulated Viswanathan Anand on winning the World Chess Championship title in Bonn, Germany after ending the 11th game with Russia's Vladimir Kramnik in a draw.

In her message, the President said, "Anand's consistent performance throughout his long and successful career is testimony to his hard work and dedication towards the challenging game of Chess."

The President has also wished him more success in the future.

Anand won three games, drew seven times and lost once en route to winning the competition by 6.5 points to 4.5.

With this win, he became the first player in chess history to have won the World Championship in three different formats: Knockout, Tournament and Match.

He will next defend his title in the World Chess Championship 2009 against the winner of the challenger match between Veselin Topalov and Gata Kamsky.

Anand is one of four players in history to break the 2800-mark on the FIDE rating list. He was on the top of the world-rating list five out of six times from April 2007 to July 2008. In October 2008, he dropped out of the world top 3 for the first time since July 1996.

ANI