The other day I was watching some chess videos and I stumbled upon one of the old match of GM Vishwanathan Anand. It was played sometime around 1994, 13 years before he became the FIDE Chess World Champion in 2007. The commentary was done by couple of gentlemen. Vishy Anand was pitted against GM I.Smirin. The interesting part of this game was Anand with the black pieces had 5mins whilst Smirin had 6mins on the clock to play, a whole minute more than Anand. And as per point standings, Anand just needed a draw to move ahead to the next round. The match started out with the usual opening of 1.e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nf6 and, 3. d4 Nxe4 until move 4: Nxe5. This was the position on the board after move 4 by Smirin(white):
Now this move 4. Nxe4, was a pawn capture by Smirin which was rather an unusual move. Anand was slightly amused by this move. He started thinking about the various possibilities and variations. Generally in Blitz games, which are under 10mins, moves are made pretty quickly, at least the initial moves as they are mostly textbook moves and the deep thinking part comes later in the game. But here that deep thinking is being done by Anand on move 4 itself, which is unheard of even today. This fact did not digest well with the commentators. They were initially discussing the game but as soon as Anand took little more than 30seconds of move 4, they were baffled. They started ranting out stuff like Anand is out of form, and that he better buckle himself up lest he will be out of the tournament. Meanwhile Anand, out of their earshot, continued his calm thinking.
Clock was ticking away. 30seconds, 60seconds, 90seconds gone. Even Smirin had a glance at Anand, maybe he was pumped thinking that he had successfully overthrown Anand’s plan. Smirin’s clock, who had a minute extra to begin with, was at 5:44 while Anand’s was now under 3:20 mins, spending almost a minute and half on move 4! By the time Anand had finally made his move, he had spent a whooping 1 minute 43 seconds for that single move. In that 1:43mins the commentators had left no stones unturned in questioning Anand’s form. “Cmon Vishy, make a move! Make a move!”, they rambled. “The position is fairly simple, what is Vishy doing?”, they kept on.
After that move, Anand made his subsequent moves pretty quickly. It was as if he had calculated all the possible moves in that 1:43mins(Much like Dr. Strange eh?). He was again the lightening kid from Chennai. He kept surprising Smirin, who although had the time advantage, did not have the advantage in the game. Anand was playing brilliantly. The commentators also seemed pretty happy with him now. They were all praises for him, “Anand is showing his form”, “He is whipping out moves”. And towards the end of the match Anand was making bullet moves. “Look at him make a minute look like a year”. Finally with Anand having 1:23mins on clock still left and Smirin 2:55mins, Smirin resigned the game! Anand had crushed his opponent in this brilliant match!
The commentator’s attitude towards Anand in this small 5min game of Chess beautifully depicted the unmasked face of our society. People will be all praises when you are kissing the sky. But the moment you do not live up to their preset expectations, they ruthlessly tear you down, disregarding all what you have accomplished or done or are capable of doing. In this game Anand wasn’t playing bad anyway, he just calmly took his own sweet time, which according to the commentators shouldn’t happen in a Blitz game. Come to think of it, even the 5 time Chess World Champion wasn’t spared of this societal phenomenon. So what do we do then? Ignore the noise around you and laser focus on your duty. Be unfazed by both praises and criticisms. Both shouldn’t deter you from the goal you set for yourself. On the other side we can also learn to be bit more kind the people around us. Society is nothing but you and me, and if we are receptive and understanding of each other, then by extension, transitively the whole will be far more kinder.
It’s not the worst idea to take a two-minute pause and get some clarity. - Anand, in his book regarding this game.
Watch the game here:
References:
