IMAGE: Dommaraju Gukesh with Rameshbabu Praggnanandha. Photograph: Lennart Ootes/FIDE
International Chess Federation (FIDE) vice president and Indian great Viswanathan Anand believes that this year’s world championship can happen in Chennai if R Praggnanandhaa wins the Candidates Tournament to challenge defending champion and compatriot D Gukesh in what could be an “emotionally charged” showdown.
The 20-year-old Praggnanandhaa is among the eight men who would be fighting for the right to challenge the world champion during the Candidates Tournament in March-April this year. He qualified after achieving the highest results during 2025 in eligible FIDE tournaments. Gukesh, 19, and Praggnanandhaa have both been mentored by Anand.
Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, Wei Yi, Javokhir Sindarov, Andrey Esipenko, and Matthias Blubaum are the others to have booked a Candidates slot and are strong contenders.
“…whoever wins the candidates… they will experience a kind of growth and will be dangerous in the World Championship. I would assume that if Pragg qualifies, that will be emotionally charged for both of them,” Anand, who is here to promote his new book ‘Lightening Kid: 64 winning lessons from the boy who became five-time world champion’ at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival, said on Friday.
“It will not be a normal match. It may even happen in Chennai. It may, I mean, they are both in the same school, same this, same that. And you know, the reaction of everyone around them, that will be very emotionally charged, but probably balanced because it’s about the same for both,” added the 56-year-old great, who became India’s first Grandmaster back in 1988.
Chennai last hosted the world showpiece in 2013 when Anand was up against Norwegian maverick and current world number one Magnus Carlsen. In 2000, Delhi had also hosted the world championship when Anand played against Spain’s Alexei Shirov.
Anand said that although Gukesh’s clash with any of the other rivals would also be an intriguing one but it would not have the “emotional noise”.
“I think with the American players, Caruana and Nakamura, there are several plots here. You could make more of a rivalry. Those guys will try to play mind games. Also, they’re much older.”
“But with the other players, I think, is essentially neutral. It’s like Javokhir Sindarov or Matthias Bluebaum, someone somehow gets there. I mean, not that they’re likely qualifiers, but if they get there, there’s no emotional noise,” he added.
The dates and venue for the world championship are still to be announced.
Anand, who describes himself as semi-retired, also spoke in detail about his equation with the younger crop that looks up to him and how it feels to go up against them in competitions like the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz Championships a few days ago in Kolkata.
Asked what keeps him going as a player to this date, Anand said, “Because I want to. I like competing.”
“…at some point a few years ago, I decided that competitively or emotionally, I wasn’t up for playing the full year and going from tournament to tournament as part of a full circuit.”
“But I liked picking and choosing and saying, I’ll block this tournament for a couple of days here, play some tournaments I find attractive and compete…this way I get a lot more free time. At the same time, I can still pick and choose my tournaments,” he added.
The charismatic veteran said his equation with the youngsters he has groomed, including R Vaishali (qualifier to women’s Candidates), and Arjun Erigaisi, is a respectful bond because of the massive age difference.
“Of course, there have been many generations younger than me. But not this much younger. Quite often, I realise I’m older than their parents…there was a time when I met Gukesh, Pragg and Arjun six, seven years ago. And I realised their combined age was not yet my age,” he quipped.
“But then, what is our relationship? Am I a legend talking to them? Because then that’s very distant. Am I a chess player? In which case, I’m absolutely equal to them. I mean, if they suggest a good move, that’s a good move. There is no seniority there,” he said.
Despite his amiable public persona, Anand said he is prone to anger especially when results on the chess board don’t go his way.
“People say, oh, you can play chess for fun, you can’t. If I lose six games, I can be in the most beautiful location on earth playing chess, and I have no fun. I’m miserable all day,” he said.
“If I win two games, I can be in some dump, and I’m very happy…crucially, I wouldn’t say that the bulk of my career was unhappy. It was very happy, but it was in a different way.”
“…if you ever start getting too philosophical about losing, I mean, the only reaction that matters is you have to be angry. Otherwise, you cease to be a chess player,” he explained.
The man, who would play 30 games a day in his prime, also recalled being cold to his rivals and keeping a poker face to avoid being read by them.
“…when I was playing against them, I didn’t even want to think about them, I didn’t want to talk to them till the match was over…till the match was over, I could not be friendly with them,” he said referring to his well-documented rivalries with Russian greats and former world champions like Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik.
“And so we actively avoided each other. Everything felt like a taunt. Everything I’d say about you felt like a taunt…it’s a state of mind. It’s very selfish. But maybe it’s the nature of sport,” he remembered.
“…it’s only afterwards you can disconnect. And it’s funny, nowadays, I get along very well with Kasparov, for instance. But there was a time when, you know, we didn’t really see eye to eye for many years.”
