Five factors that led to the World Title

1. First of all, my team (comprising former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Peter Heine Nielsen, Radoslav Wojtaszek and Surya Shekhar Ganguly) was very good. Really, it was exceptionally good. The amount of work we covered and also the atmosphere was very nice. After a while, we worked listening to music, watching comedies, all sort of stuff. Many times, my ‘seconds’ told me, “Why should we come to the hall? The atmosphere is much better here.” So they seemed to be having so much fun. That’s nice. It is so important to have this team atmosphere. One feels relaxed and feels comfortable with one another. After a while, it should not be the case that you get on each other’s nerves. But we did not have this problem at all.

2. I was disciplined in letting Aruna (wife) deal with everything else. She was disciplined in not telling me anything.

3. This time I really thought I was in a “bubble.” I was in this “chess bubble” for several months and I am coming out only just now. I told you, I did not go out (during the days of the match). I just tried to stay in my room. When I went down for breakfast, I even avoided eye contact with people. That helped me stay focussed.

4. I think Kramnik’s taunts last year. He taunted me a lot and it somehow helped me concentrate better. During the match he was extremely nice. On the last day, he was very gracious. I think it comes with the territory. Like, in election campaigns, they insult each other and then they shake hands and show how wonderful they are, in the end. I had to do a good job here, otherwise I would have had to deal with this whole thing of not winning a match and so on.

5. Finally, I was just able to maintain my concentration at a very high level during the match. You cannot play without good concentration because the positions were so sharp. We did prepare well and there were surprises for him but things are not easy anyway. And I think, I dealt with the rest days, the schedule well. After two games, there was a rest day, so that evening I relaxed. And the next day, I started working again.