Today, the 11th of May 2010 goes into the History as one of biggest ever achievement by an Indian. Vishwanathan Anand does it again, retaining his World Chess Title for the 4th time.
This time, it was an adventure, a Drama, a story and finally an EPIC.
An Adventure: A Drama
The May 2010 Tornado outbreak, volcanic Ash emissions and poor weather across several american and european countries meant that several flighs were delayed or cancelled. One of those flights for the route "Frankfurt to Sofia" had a ticket reserved for a passenger "Anand Viswanathan " who was travelling for his world Chess Championship.
With his request to postpone the tournament opener by 3 days being rejected, 40 hours of land journey is what Anand had to manage to get there for the opening ceremony of the World Championship. Anand reached Sofia on 20th April and the opener had to be delayed a day.!
That was an added advantage for Topalov, or so would be for any player when the opponent is not in the best of his health or fitness.
While a 12 hour overnight bus journey puts most of us to dose on a Monday morning in Office (mostly Chennai - Bangalore or Coimbatore - Bangalore travels), imagine the condition of this poor champ..!!
Preparation / The army:
Well.. This is an interesting one.. Ever since IBM's Deep blue machine sent GM Gary Kasparov packing, it was widely regarded that Machines are unbeatable. But our Hero proves that a human cluster can quite easily challenge any machine cluster, afterall, behind every sucessful machine, there is a human brain..!!
See below a picture :
This is not a scene from any of the action-movies or Sci-fi program like "Captain Vyom" , or "Mr.India" climax scene, or some "Jadoo" movie like "Koi Milgaya", or some terrorist planting a bomb types.
This is a 52 core processor computer cluster. Topalov's team had access to four twelve-core machines and eight eight-core systems all connected into a cluster of 112 processors. And the rumours said that he spent EUR 100,000 to secure this system.
And he also had the chess programing software Rybka v4 which was not available to anyone at that time, as the Poland Government decided to hold that advanced Chess software until the championship games were over..!
And what did Anand have with him? A human cluster..!!!
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| The Victorious "Team Anand" |
An Epic Battle:
Now starts the battle: 12 games to be played, with each player having 6 games with white and 6 games with black.
Quite the usual start to a tournament with both players securing win, and displaying the fact they are interested in a result game rather than a draw.
Comments, discussions, arguments, debates, suggestions, opinions and blames! all started to progress along with the tournament. But it was the 9th game where it all peaked and went against Anand when he missed a number of winning opportunities, resulting in an unconvincing and undeserving draw that again saw the scores level.
The History:
Then came the history, rather His'story: After two more drawn games, the scores read 5.5-5.5, preparations for the final game was in progress. The floor boys were arranging for the tie-breakers to be played the day after, assuming this too would end in a draw.
STOP THEM..! Anand has WON.. This time, with the black pieces, in 56 moves. He has once again silenced his critics who keep complaining about the age criteria. That is now a common practice - to abuse people that they are ageing and not fit for the sport anymore..
Also to say, some useful tips and support from GM Gary Kasparov and GM Vladimir Kramnik ensured that the computer cluster was easily outplayed by the human brains.
More than winning the title, it is retaining the title that is critical and tougher. That is what you call as “CLASS” and one who does it as “CHAMPION”.
And for me, what more can I ask for: Being an ardent Chess fan, I managed some technical stuffs whereby I could bring the live transmission of the final match , from my laptop, to my LCD TV.. and on the big screen , watch Topalov surrendering his king to a “King of Chess”..!! Hail the King..! What more do you want me to say ??
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