Team India extend world record to 17 consecutive test series wins on home soil

[rollingstoned]

29 minutes ago, Lone Wolf said:

The day Indian HDI reaches at even Central Asian level we would start competing with West & likes of SoKo Japs in many sports. 

 

I think pre or contemporary Rigvedic Indians/South Asians would be at similar Athletic and genetic level of our DNA brothers Iranians and Central Asians... 

Post that thousands of years of Poverty and climatic & cultural reasons made genetics kinda lose that edge...  Otherwise no reason wth happened.  South Asia still is worst sporting region on the planet along with SEA. 

 

Greek Travelers like Megasthenes did mention Indians were as Taller as Greeks/Persians...  That's the earliest account of a foreigner depicting Ancient Indians via their lens. 

Dilli dur ast. We will get there imo, but should try to enjoy the journey. Might be a cliche but still. 

[Vijy]

2 hours ago, Gollum said:

Sorry for digressing but our Paris Olympics chances look very bleak. I am not sure we can surpass our Tokyo haul, shooters have to do something for a change. Lots of bad news there including form issues, injuries.

 

And in hockey we have been placed in the tough group alongside Aus, Belgium, NZ, Argentina. Even if we do well, a QF clash against Germans or Dutch is inevitable, don't want to meet them so early. 

we may well get 2-3 medals and regress to pre-2010s level

[Vijy]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

Our flaws, we must accept our shortcomings and work on them. 

lot of shortcomings, lot of promise - both are true

[deathmonger]

India's issue is poverty, not race.

 

A rising tide lifts all boats.

 

As India gets richer, there will be excellence in all fields.

 

 

[deathmonger]

2 hours ago, Gollum said:

Isolated regions like Haryana, Punjab, Manipur, Andhra (badminton) can't do it all alone. Other states must pull their weight. 

 

I say the same for even chess, we literally have zero GMs from 70% of our states.....best players from Punjab, Haryana, JK, Rajasthan etc. are weaker than thousands of schoolchildren from Chennai. I read recently about a 1900 becoming Rajasthan's state champ, trust me there are ICFers stronger than that player, and 7 year olds from traditional centres. 

 

Unless we expand beyond traditional zones, we can't match Russia in chess or even Iran/Kaz in Olympics. 

Even these regions took time.

 

Andhra only became a thing post Pullela. It will happen slowly.

[Gollum]

46 minutes ago, Vijy said:

we may well get 2-3 medals and regress to pre-2010s level

Remember 2016 Rio was a complete disaster and Sindhu, Sakshi saved face in the ending days of the games. For most of the games I actually thought we'd return with no medal. Awful feeling. 

 

If we don't better our Tokyo performance, I'll be gutted. Sindhu, Mirabai, Lovlina have injury issues, wrestlers I have no hope because of the controversy and groupism, delay in training camps......tough draw in hockey, law of averages for Neeraj, not much hope in other athletic events, non-stop choking in shooting.  Badminton men's doubles gives me hope and we know how fickle that competition is. 

 

Really nervous this time. 

[rollingstoned]

3 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Remember 2016 Rio was a complete disaster and Sindhu, Sakshi saved face in the ending days of the games. For most of the games I actually thought we'd return with no medal. Awful feeling. 

 

If we don't better our Tokyo performance, I'll be gutted. Sindhu, Mirabai, Lovlina have injury issues, wrestlers I have no hope because of the controversy and groupism, delay in training camps......tough draw in hockey, law of averages for Neeraj, not much hope in other athletic events, non-stop choking in shooting.  Badminton men's doubles gives me hope and we know how fickle that competition is. 

 

Really nervous this time. 

I can't beleive the women's hockey team didn't qualify for the Olympics this time. Feared this would happen as soon as they lost to China in the Asian games where they were not good enough. 

[Vijy]

2 hours ago, Gollum said:

Remember 2016 Rio was a complete disaster and Sindhu, Sakshi saved face in the ending days of the games. For most of the games I actually thought we'd return with no medal. Awful feeling. 

 

If we don't better our Tokyo performance, I'll be gutted. Sindhu, Mirabai, Lovlina have injury issues, wrestlers I have no hope because of the controversy and groupism, delay in training camps......tough draw in hockey, law of averages for Neeraj, not much hope in other athletic events, non-stop choking in shooting.  Badminton men's doubles gives me hope and we know how fickle that competition is. 

 

Really nervous this time. 

you are right to be nervous @Gollum. I, too, expect a meagre haul, and will be surprised if the opposite happens

[Suhaan]

15 hours ago, MediumPacer said:

we need some loses,at this rate icf will be dead.

All formats?we need to win some ICC or big series overseas to bring back some of the erstwhile great posters

miss @maniac @velu Anna,  @SK_IH 's

 

Edited March 10, 2024 by Suhaan

[Gollum]

2 hours ago, BlueBlood said:

Even in a game like Chess, the fitness and focus levels are meek due to malnutrition and lack of proper coaching system that focuses on thriving in stressful tournaments.

Really didn't understand this part. Rest of your post is fine, agree with many of those points. 

[Trichromatic]

2 hours ago, BlueBlood said:

So much nonsense about rich/poor... In China and even places like Eastern Europe, Africa etc. The poorest generally do really well in Olympics due to hunger.

 

India easily has over 1 crore population having over 170k USD. 

 

There are countries with lower wealth for top 1 cr population and doing well in sports.

 

Poverty is not the reason for India doing badly.

[putrevus]

9 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

 

India easily has over 1 crore population having over 170k USD. 

 

There are countries with lower wealth for top 1 cr population and doing well in sports.

 

Poverty is not the reason for India doing badly.

What do you think is the reason why India is not doing well then.

[Vijy]

26 minutes ago, BlueBlood said:

Magnus Carlsen has mentioned many times and even people who have analyzed his game carefully that his secret to success is that he does lots of cardio workouts and meditation to be physically fit.

 

The benefit he gets is that in long tournaments where players have already played for several hours and multiple days, in the finals, where it really matters a lot of players lose focus and get jittery due to tiredness. This forces them to make mistakes and they lose.

 

Magnus is a legend at this where he never makes mistakes even in game 5 of a final even when it's blitz chess even when has has played for 4+ hours that day.

 

Players like Pragyananda although supremely talented, generally never end up becoming ATG in Chess for extended periods of time like Magnus for exactly this reason.

 

Look at Vishy Anand, someone who is supremely talented but under-achieved to his potential because of his lack of fitness both mentally and physically in long tournaments.

wouldn't you call kasparov an ATG for a long period? he didn't do all that workouts and meditation. reason carlsen and kasparov are among the GOATs is because they are simply a cut above their competition. has little to do with malnutrition or workouts or meditation.

 

In 1980s, likes of Eng, Aus, even NZ had the same facilities and higher standard of living -- if not more -- than WI, yet there is no doubt that the latter was the ATG side, and one of the 2-3 GOAT sides.

 

I don't buy this argument. Obviously fitness and mental toughness are important in sports, but so is skill. And in skill-based sports (like cricket), that can and does become the dominant factor.

[vvvslaxman]

Only 2 teams can potentiall make this happen. Australia and England. England is now going back to old England. So only Australia can do this. They are also going through transition. There is no replacement for Warner or Smith. I think we can hold on to this for a few more series.

[Gollum]

16 hours ago, BlueBlood said:

Magnus Carlsen has mentioned many times and even people who have analyzed his game carefully that his secret to success is that he does lots of cardio workouts and meditation to be physically fit.

 

The benefit he gets is that in long tournaments where players have already played for several hours and multiple days, in the finals, where it really matters a lot of players lose focus and get jittery due to tiredness. This forces them to make mistakes and they lose.

 

Magnus is a legend at this where he never makes mistakes even in game 5 of a final even when it's blitz chess even when has has played for 4+ hours that day.

 

Players like Pragyananda although supremely talented, generally never end up becoming ATG in Chess for extended periods of time like Magnus for exactly this reason.

Magnus Carlsen is an outlier, he is like an Usain Bolt, Jahangir Khan or Khabib. Even the best players from USA, Russia, France, Germany, China, Hungary, Poland, Uzbekistan, Iran get crushed by him. So I didn't understand your post about lack of fitness, focus (?), malnutrition etc applicable to Indian players. Do we have data to quantify these things....our youngsters do just fine compared to best of the world except Magnus, and even the West may not produce another Magnus for the next 100 years.

 

And coaching system? Of course Magnus has the best coaches at his disposal because he can afford them, heck he poached the Russian Dubov, a close friend of Russian title contender Nepo to be his second for the WCC and Russians could do nothing about it...money talks . But Indian coaching today is well reputed, particularly when it comes to making GMs, and taking them to 2700, ours and Uzbek coaches are the best in this regard. Of course not many have experience of taking players beyond that level, but that will slowly come, a country like Russia has more coaches curated specifically for the top guys, because of legacy reasons.

16 hours ago, BlueBlood said:

Look at Vishy Anand, someone who is supremely talented but under-achieved to his potential because of his lack of fitness both mentally and physically in long tournaments.

Sure Vishy wasn't as fit as Kasparov or Carlsen, but his underachievement wasn't because of that. 

 

Even Russian greats (also nationalists who tend to overrate their already formidable chess legacy) like Kramnik and Grischuk regard Vishy as the greatest talent of all time. Recently, Carlsen in a YT interview gave himself 6/10 in talent department and Vishy 9/10. 

 

The thing is Vishy was India's 1st GM that too at a late age of almost 19, his peers in India were non-existent. Most of India's top players then were 1800-2000, Thipsay was 2200. Vishy had to figure everything out himself, in the 70s and 80s we didn't have powerful chess engines or coaching like we have today, even chess literature was in Russian. Kasparov is just 5 years elder to Vishy, at the age of 7 Garry was in a special USSR school for gifted chess prodigies, by the age of 10 he was in Botvinnik's school. Botvinnik was the patriarch of Soviet chess, a legendary world champion in the 1960s, the Dronacharya/Socrates/Plato (I mean GOAT coach or teacher) of chess, he handpicked a 10-11 year old Garry and personally trained him. Garry was surrounded by the best young players of USSR, trained and guided by Botvinnik (head coach, father like figure), Tal (tactics, also his closest mentor and biggest supporter in the matches against the establishment guy Karpov), Smyslov (endgame), Taimanov (openings, also the guy who introduced Garry to his present wife Daria, also one of the GOAT pianists, remarkable man who passed away few years back in his 90s) etc....and just like that I named 5 world champions and one candidate in that one line, hope people understand what Anand was up against. All this while Anand was figuring out everything himself, and since he didn't have any coach (it was treason for USSR coaches to work with outsiders and the few options he had in the West, he couldn't afford them due to lack of sponsors) he developed his own unique style somewhat counterintuitive to confuse the coached guys (only elite player in chess history who prefers knight to bishop, today's engines disagree with him, Morezovich moves the knight as well as Vishy but doesn't actively prefer it over bishop) but for most parts pragmatic and original. Openings and endgames can only be studied under proper trainers, so Vishy naturally was weak in them, till his mid 20s he knew next to nothing about openings and played endgames like a noob, but in middlegames he was magical, greatest in chess history and even today he is no weaker at that than a much younger Carlsen. But his game was never fully developed unlike Garry's and even his mental side wasn't that good, of course Kasparov had a state appointed personalized psychologist with him, Nikitn (who also was a GM) 24x7 since his teen days staying at his house, these things are unthinkable in 1980s India, heck even today's India....for USSR the status of chess champion was top of the agenda, crucial for their propaganda against intellectually inferior decadent West. 

 

So Vishy somehow became a GM and within 2 years of that a regular in candidates. By the age of 26 even played a world championship title against Garry. But his flaws couldn't be completely removed, while he eventually improved and became a master in openings (today is regarded as the third greatest theoretician of all time behind Kasparov and Kramnik), his endgame technique was weird (sidenote, GM Shipov came up with a funny saying in Russian: Vishy plays the opening like a book, middlegame like a magician and endgame like a lawn mower). He used to rely on fortresses (still does, Carlsen ribs him often about this in post game PCs) and deception instead of sound technique, Mark Dvoretsky (world's greatest endgame trainer) worked with him in the 90s but couldn't help him improve, in his words it was his greatest failure as a coach....reason is not that Vishy wasn't receptive or a hard worker, it was because those things were so hardwired into his system since his formative years that he could never correct them....Dvoretsky managed to make Topalov a competent endgame specialist but Topalov being from Bulgaria was better coached in his younger years. Almost all these elites became GMs by 15-16 and maximum improvement happens by early 20s, Anand missed that bus as he was a late developer, again a victim of circumstance. Anyway Carlsen exploited this hole in Anand's game ruthlessly (especially rook and pawn endgame), age gap was also too big and in their 2 title matches, Anand was twice as old as Carlsen and still managed to give Carlsen a scare in Sochi, that was Carlsen at his peak......after 2012-14 Carlsen never reached that height, check his ratings and supertournament victories list. Carlsen of 2016 (Karjakin) was terrible, 2018 (Caruana) just ok, before improving in 21. Sochi Anand would have beaten New York Carlsen. 

 

Anyway another reason for Anand's underperformance was his mentality. But again, he was an Indian from our worst years (economically), inferiority complex and meekness were the norm, there was a sense of hopelessness throughout the country, how could he be unaffected by it? Not helped by the fact that all his opponents were from Soviet Union (even Shirov, Gelfand, Ivanchuk etc, were in USSR that time). And the Soviets had a habit of making outsiders feel unwelcome, ganging up against external threats (including rigging tournament games to ensure one of their own always won). The only 2 outside threats to USSR chess were Bobby Fischer and later Anand, Larsen was never a WCC contender!!!!!! And we saw what happened to Fischer's mental health, quit right after beating Spassky. Spassky anyway was a gentleman, the guys Vishy was up against Karpov, Kasparov were not just way stronger but also cutthroat assholes, hostile, one may even say racist especially Karpov. FIDE led by the Kremlin loyalist Illyumzhinov too favored the Russians blindly, case in point Anand having to play a brutal 128 game knockout event in Netherlands and within 48 hours a match against well rested Karpov (his political life deserves a separate post, including his role in current Ukraine war) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Anand meekly accepted these injustices instead of protesting, but again AICF was a joke back then, India had lack of self esteem, we were not confident like we are now.

 

Carlsen had no mental baggage, born in the post Soviet era that too in a rich/developed country like Norway, internet age, trained with computers and excellent trainers since childhood (Norway had 10 GMs before Carlsen and GM Adgestein hand held Carlsen since he was a child), generous sponsorship and Norwegian social security, confident even cocky because of his origin. Kasparov coached him when he was a teenager, for full 2 years where he passed on his experience (and opening knowledge) to play Anand, Kramnik....of course Kasparov had personal issues with Vlad/Vishy and wanted a Western world champion. Magnus is one of the GOAT talents (personally put him below Morphy, Capa, Anand) but much like Kasparov, things fell in the right place for him at the right time, so he could maximize his potential. 

 

Thing is origin story of Kasparov/Carlsen is much much different than Vishy's....think about it, Kasparov getting coached in his childhood by Botvinnik, Carlsen by Kasparov (with open access to Kasparov's opening repertoire, one of the most closely held secrets and brahmastara like weapon, 40 years worth of work featuring top minds of USSR and Garry/Botvinnik etc...something that accelerated Carlsen's growth in unimaginable ways), Anand all alone in his journey. They were more privileged and that was the main reason they ended up in the GOAT race while Vishy will be in the 5-10 race (not top 4 in terms of career achievements, unfortunately). Fitness is a minor thing in comparison...talking about fitness, it didn't help Kortchnoi against Karpov in their 2 title clashes, see how the defector prepared for those matches, there is an interesting documentary also. 

 

But still damn proud of what Vishy managed, being the first GM of a country and also a world champion, it is never going to be repeated again. Put other greats in 1970s Madras, I don't know what they would have done. But it is a scary prospect imagining an 8 year old Vishy getting enrolled in Botvinnik's school under the legendary master's personal tutelage.  Many may feel he wasn't mentally a beast or hard working, but remember this is a guy who kept trying and became the oldest world champ at the age of 37, and achieved his peak at the age of 41. Today at the age of 55 he is still in top 10....Kasparov's rating is protected but based on his rapid/blitz games in St Louis (including against Anand) he is a 2600ish player at max. All those who were peers of Anand today are struggling to be in top 100, Svidler believes Anand can be top 10 even in his 60s and a WCC contender, even though he may not be motivated at this stage of his life. That speaks volumes about the man's greatness. 

 

Sorry for the long post, and digressions. I know this essay may lack coherence for most part, but was forced to post this to clear some misunderstandings about these legendary chess players. 

Edited March 11, 2024 by Gollum

[sensible-indian]

10 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Magnus Carlsen is an outlier, he is like an Usain Bolt, Jahangir Khan or Khabib. Even the best players from USA, Russia, France, Germany, China, Hungary, Poland, Uzbekistan, Iran get crushed by him. So I didn't understand your post about lack of fitness, focus (?), malnutrition etc applicable to Indian players. Do we have data to quantify these things....our youngsters do just fine compared to best of the world except Magnus, and even the West may not produce another Magnus for the next 100 years.

 

And coaching system? Of course Magnus has the best coaches at his disposal because he can afford them, heck he poached the Russian Dubov, a close friend of Russian title contender Nepo to be his second for the WCC and Russians could do nothing about it...money talks . But Indian coaching today is well reputed, particularly when it comes to making GMs, and taking them to 2700, ours and Uzbek coaches are the best in this regard. Of course not many have experience of taking players beyond that level, but that will slowly come, a country like Russia has more coaches curated specifically for the top guys, because of legacy reasons.

Sure Vishy wasn't as fit as Kasparov or Carlsen, but his underachievement wasn't because of that. 

 

Even Russian greats (also nationalists who tend to overrate their already formidable chess legacy) like Kramnik and Grischuk regard Vishy as the greatest talent of all time. Recently, Carlsen in a YT interview gave himself 6/10 in talent department and Vishy 9/10. 

 

The thing is Vishy was India's 1st GM that too at a late age of almost 19, his peers in India were non-existent. Most of India's top players then were 1800-2000, Thipsay was 2200. Vishy had to figure everything out himself, in the 70s and 80s we didn't have powerful chess engines or coaching like we have today, even chess literature was in Russian. Kasparov is just 5 years elder to Vishy, at the age of 7 Garry was in a special USSR school for gifted chess prodigies, by the age of 10 he was in Botvinnik's school. Botvinnik was the patriarch of Soviet chess, a legendary world champion in the 1960s, the Dronacharya/Socrates/Plato (I mean GOAT coach or teacher) of chess, he handpicked a 10-11 year old Garry and personally trained him. Garry was surrounded by the best young players of USSR, trained and guided by Botvinnik, Tal (tactics), Smyslov (endgame), Taimanov etc. All this while Anand was figuring out everything himself, and since he didn't have any coach (it was treason for USSR coaches to work with outsiders and the few options he had in the West, he couldn't afford them due to lack of sponsors) he developed his own style often counterintuitive, pragmatic and original. Openings and endgames can only be studied under proper trainers, so Vishy naturally was weak in them, till his mid 20s he knew next to nothing about openings and played endgames like a noob, but in middlegames he was magical, greatest in chess history and even today he is no weaker at that than a much younger Carlsen. But his game was never fully developed unlike Garry's and even his mental side wasn't that good, of course Kasparov had a state appointed personalized psychologist with him, Nikitn (who also was a GM) 24x7 since his teen days staying at his house, these things are unthinkable in 1980s India, heck even today's India....for USSR the status of chess champion was top of the agenda, crucial for their propaganda against intellectually inferior decadent West. 

 

So Vishy somehow became a GM and within 2 years of that a regular in candidates. By the age of 26 even played a world championship title against Garry. But his flaws couldn't be completely removed, while he eventually improved and became a master in openings (today is regarded as the third greatest theoretician of all time behind Kasparov and Kramnik), his endgame technique was weird (sidenote, GM Shipov came up with a funny saying in Russian: Vishy plays the opening like a book, middlegame like a magician and endgame like a lawn mower). He used to rely on fortresses and deception instead of sound technique, Mark Dvoretsky (world's greatest endgame trainer) worked with him in the 90s but couldn't help him improve, in his words it was his greatest failure as a coach....reason is not that Vishy wasn't receptive or a hard worker, it was because those things were so hardwired into his system since his formative years that he could never correct them....Dvoretsky managed to make Topalov a competent endgame specialist but Topalov being from Bulgaria was better coached in his younger years. Almost all these elites became GMs by 15-16 and maximum improvement happens by early 20s, Anand missed that bus as he was a late developer, again a victim of circumstance. Anyway Carlsen exploited hole in Anand's game ruthlessly (especially rook and pawn endgame), age gap was also too big and in their 2 title matches, Anand was twice as old as Carlsen and still managed to give Carlsen a scare in Sochi, that was Carlsen at his peak......after 2012-14 Carlsen never reached that height, check his ratings and supertournament victories list. Carlsen of 2016 (Karjakin) was terrible, 2018 (Caruana) just ok, before improving in 21. Sochi Anand would have beaten New York Carlsen. 

 

Anyway another reason for Anand's underperformance was his mentality. But again, he was an Indian from our worst years (economically), inferiority complex and meekness were the norm, there was a sense of hopelessness. Not helped by the fact that all his opponents were from Soviet Union (even Gelfand, Ivanchuk etc, were in USSR that time). And the Soviets had a habit of making outsiders feel unwelcome, ganging up against external threats (including rigging tournament games to ensure one of their own always one). The only 2 outside threats to USSR chess were Bobby Fischer and later Anand, Larsen was never a WCC contender!!!!!! And we saw what happened to Fischer's mental health, quit right after beating Spassky. Spassky anyway was a gentleman, the guys Vishy was up against Karpov, Kasparov were assholes, hostile, one may even say racist especially Karpov. FIDE too favored the Russians blindly, case in point Anand having to play a brutal 128 game knockout event in Netherlands and within 48 hours a match against well rested Karpov in Lausanne, Switzerland. Anand meekly accepted these injustices instead of protesting, but again AICF was a joke back then, India had lack of self esteem, we were not confident like we are now.

 

Carlsen had no mental baggage, born in the post Soviet era, internet age, trained with computers and best trainers since childhood (Norway had 10 GMs before Carlsen and GM Adgestein hand held Carlsen since he was a child), generous sponsorship and Norwegian social security, confident even cocky because of his origin. Kasparov coached him when he was a teenager, for full 2 years where he passed on his experience to play Anand, Kramnik....of course Kasparov had personal issues with Vlad/Vishy and wanted a Western world champion. Magnus is one of the GOAT talents (personally put him below Morphy, Capa, Anand) but much like Kasparov, things fell in the right place for him at the right time, so he could maximize his potential. 

 

Thing is origin story of Kasparov/Carlsen is much much different than Vishy's. They were more privileged and that was the main reason they ended up in the GOAT race while Vishy will be in the 5-10 race (not top 4 in terms of career achievements, unfortunately). Fitness is a minor thing in comparison...talking about fitness, it didn't help Kortchnoi against Karpov in their 2 games, see how the defector prepared for those matches, there is an interesting documentary also. 

 

But still damn proud of what Vishy managed, being the first GM of a country and also a world champion, it is never going to be repeated again. Put other greats in 1970s Madras, I don't know what they would have done. But it is a scary prospect imagining an 8 year old Vishy getting enrolled in Botvinnik's school under the legendary master's personal tutelage.  Many may feel he wasn't mentally a beast or hard working, but remember this is a guy who kept trying and became the oldest world champ at the age of 37, and achieved his peak at the age of 41. Today at the age of 55 he is still in top 10....Kasparov's rating is protected but based on his rapid/blitz games in St Louis (including against Anand) he is a 2600ish player at max. All those who were peers of Anand today are struggling to be in top 100, Svidler believes Anand can be top 10 even in his 60s and a WCC contender, even though he may not be motivated at this stage of his life. That speaks volumes about the man's greatness. 

 

Sorry for the long post, and digressions. I know this essay may lack coherence for most, but was forced to post this to clear some misunderstandings about these legendary chess players. 

Dude thank you soooo much for posting it.

 

I am going to screenshot and save these posts. 

[Vijy]

19 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Magnus Carlsen is an outlier, he is like an Usain Bolt, Jahangir Khan or Khabib. Even the best players from USA, Russia, France, Germany, China, Hungary, Poland, Uzbekistan, Iran get crushed by him. So I didn't understand your post about lack of fitness, focus (?), malnutrition etc applicable to Indian players. Do we have data to quantify these things....our youngsters do just fine compared to best of the world except Magnus, and even the West may not produce another Magnus for the next 100 years.

 

And coaching system? Of course Magnus has the best coaches at his disposal because he can afford them, heck he poached the Russian Dubov, a close friend of Russian title contender Nepo to be his second for the WCC and Russians could do nothing about it...money talks . But Indian coaching today is well reputed, particularly when it comes to making GMs, and taking them to 2700, ours and Uzbek coaches are the best in this regard. Of course not many have experience of taking players beyond that level, but that will slowly come, a country like Russia has more coaches curated specifically for the top guys, because of legacy reasons.

Sure Vishy wasn't as fit as Kasparov or Carlsen, but his underachievement wasn't because of that. 

 

Even Russian greats (also nationalists who tend to overrate their already formidable chess legacy) like Kramnik and Grischuk regard Vishy as the greatest talent of all time. Recently, Carlsen in a YT interview gave himself 6/10 in talent department and Vishy 9/10. 

 

The thing is Vishy was India's 1st GM that too at a late age of almost 19, his peers in India were non-existent. Most of India's top players then were 1800-2000, Thipsay was 2200. Vishy had to figure everything out himself, in the 70s and 80s we didn't have powerful chess engines or coaching like we have today, even chess literature was in Russian. Kasparov is just 5 years elder to Vishy, at the age of 7 Garry was in a special USSR school for gifted chess prodigies, by the age of 10 he was in Botvinnik's school. Botvinnik was the patriarch of Soviet chess, a legendary world champion in the 1960s, the Dronacharya/Socrates/Plato (I mean GOAT coach or teacher) of chess, he handpicked a 10-11 year old Garry and personally trained him. Garry was surrounded by the best young players of USSR, trained and guided by Botvinnik, Tal (tactics), Smyslov (endgame), Taimanov etc. All this while Anand was figuring out everything himself, and since he didn't have any coach (it was treason for USSR coaches to work with outsiders and the few options he had in the West, he couldn't afford them due to lack of sponsors) he developed his own style often counterintuitive, pragmatic and original. Openings and endgames can only be studied under proper trainers, so Vishy naturally was weak in them, till his mid 20s he knew next to nothing about openings and played endgames like a noob, but in middlegames he was magical, greatest in chess history and even today he is no weaker at that than a much younger Carlsen. But his game was never fully developed unlike Garry's and even his mental side wasn't that good, of course Kasparov had a state appointed personalized psychologist with him, Nikitn (who also was a GM) 24x7 since his teen days staying at his house, these things are unthinkable in 1980s India, heck even today's India....for USSR the status of chess champion was top of the agenda, crucial for their propaganda against intellectually inferior decadent West. 

 

So Vishy somehow became a GM and within 2 years of that a regular in candidates. By the age of 26 even played a world championship title against Garry. But his flaws couldn't be completely removed, while he eventually improved and became a master in openings (today is regarded as the third greatest theoretician of all time behind Kasparov and Kramnik), his endgame technique was weird (sidenote, GM Shipov came up with a funny saying in Russian: Vishy plays the opening like a book, middlegame like a magician and endgame like a lawn mower). He used to rely on fortresses and deception instead of sound technique, Mark Dvoretsky (world's greatest endgame trainer) worked with him in the 90s but couldn't help him improve, in his words it was his greatest failure as a coach....reason is not that Vishy wasn't receptive or a hard worker, it was because those things were so hardwired into his system since his formative years that he could never correct them....Dvoretsky managed to make Topalov a competent endgame specialist but Topalov being from Bulgaria was better coached in his younger years. Almost all these elites became GMs by 15-16 and maximum improvement happens by early 20s, Anand missed that bus as he was a late developer, again a victim of circumstance. Anyway Carlsen exploited hole in Anand's game ruthlessly (especially rook and pawn endgame), age gap was also too big and in their 2 title matches, Anand was twice as old as Carlsen and still managed to give Carlsen a scare in Sochi, that was Carlsen at his peak......after 2012-14 Carlsen never reached that height, check his ratings and supertournament victories list. Carlsen of 2016 (Karjakin) was terrible, 2018 (Caruana) just ok, before improving in 21. Sochi Anand would have beaten New York Carlsen. 

 

Anyway another reason for Anand's underperformance was his mentality. But again, he was an Indian from our worst years (economically), inferiority complex and meekness were the norm, there was a sense of hopelessness. Not helped by the fact that all his opponents were from Soviet Union (even Gelfand, Ivanchuk etc, were in USSR that time). And the Soviets had a habit of making outsiders feel unwelcome, ganging up against external threats (including rigging tournament games to ensure one of their own always won). The only 2 outside threats to USSR chess were Bobby Fischer and later Anand, Larsen was never a WCC contender!!!!!! And we saw what happened to Fischer's mental health, quit right after beating Spassky. Spassky anyway was a gentleman, the guys Vishy was up against Karpov, Kasparov were not just way stronger but also cutthroat assholes, hostile, one may even say racist especially Karpov. FIDE led by the Kremlin loyalist Illyumzhinov too favored the Russians blindly, case in point Anand having to play a brutal 128 game knockout event in Netherlands and within 48 hours a match against well rested Karpov (his political life deserves a separate post, including his role in current Ukraine war) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Anand meekly accepted these injustices instead of protesting, but again AICF was a joke back then, India had lack of self esteem, we were not confident like we are now.

 

Carlsen had no mental baggage, born in the post Soviet era, internet age, trained with computers and excellent trainers since childhood (Norway had 10 GMs before Carlsen and GM Adgestein hand held Carlsen since he was a child), generous sponsorship and Norwegian social security, confident even cocky because of his origin. Kasparov coached him when he was a teenager, for full 2 years where he passed on his experience to play Anand, Kramnik....of course Kasparov had personal issues with Vlad/Vishy and wanted a Western world champion. Magnus is one of the GOAT talents (personally put him below Morphy, Capa, Anand) but much like Kasparov, things fell in the right place for him at the right time, so he could maximize his potential. 

 

Thing is origin story of Kasparov/Carlsen is much much different than Vishy's....think about it, Kasparov getting coached in his childhood by Botvinnik, Carlsen by Kasparov, Anand all alone in his journey. They were more privileged and that was the main reason they ended up in the GOAT race while Vishy will be in the 5-10 race (not top 4 in terms of career achievements, unfortunately). Fitness is a minor thing in comparison...talking about fitness, it didn't help Kortchnoi against Karpov in their 2 games, see how the defector prepared for those matches, there is an interesting documentary also. 

 

But still damn proud of what Vishy managed, being the first GM of a country and also a world champion, it is never going to be repeated again. Put other greats in 1970s Madras, I don't know what they would have done. But it is a scary prospect imagining an 8 year old Vishy getting enrolled in Botvinnik's school under the legendary master's personal tutelage.  Many may feel he wasn't mentally a beast or hard working, but remember this is a guy who kept trying and became the oldest world champ at the age of 37, and achieved his peak at the age of 41. Today at the age of 55 he is still in top 10....Kasparov's rating is protected but based on his rapid/blitz games in St Louis (including against Anand) he is a 2600ish player at max. All those who were peers of Anand today are struggling to be in top 100, Svidler believes Anand can be top 10 even in his 60s and a WCC contender, even though he may not be motivated at this stage of his life. That speaks volumes about the man's greatness. 

 

Sorry for the long post, and digressions. I know this essay may lack coherence for most part, but was forced to post this to clear some misunderstandings about these legendary chess players. 

great post!

[MediumPacer]

@Gollum  that's some knowledge about vishy

[vvvslaxman]

I agree i am a self-loather too to some extent lol But i won't discredit wins. I just criticize the losses. One has nothing to do with other.

[Suhaan]

Vishwanathan why you post on cricket here using @Gollum