It involved a lot of work

The World champion, Viswanathan Anand, speaks to Rakesh Rao on the formation of his team of ‘Fabulous Four’ and the role played by his ‘seconds’ in the historic triumph in the ‘Battle of Bonn.’

The role of ‘seconds’ in a key chess match becomes extremely crucial when the players involved are equally matched. From the moment the World Championship match between champion Viswanathan Anand and the Russian challenger, Vladimir Kramnik, was announced, it was imminent for the two competitors to zero-in on players who could form their team of ‘seconds’.

The job of ‘seconds’ is to work deeper on opening theories, look for ‘novelties’ (new moves) and minimise the load of the player in question. Being a ‘second’ is extremely demanding since the job involves daily work of up to 16-18 hours for the duration of the match.

The volume of work is huge and the preparations have to be thorough. That’s why the work of ‘seconds’ starts months before the actual match and does not end till the last move is played.

Much before the last move was played in the Anand-Kramnik clash, it became evident that Anand’s team, comprising former World champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Peter Heine Nielsen, Radoslav Wojtaszek and Surya Shekhar Ganguly, had out-prepared Kramnik’s ‘seconds’, Peter Leko, Laurent Fressinet and Sergey Rublevsky.

After the match, Anand spoke to Sportstar at length about the formation of the team of ‘Fabulous Four’ and the role played by his ‘seconds’ in his historic triumph in Bonn.

Peter Heine Nielsen (35, Grandmaster from Denmark, rated 2668): Peter has been around for long, he is a constant. He is very organised and the one who knows me best. If I had a problem, I would tell him and then he would think of ways of breaking down the problem and sharing it with my other ‘seconds’. Also, there are some personal things I can’t explain, things that you can’t put into words. Something might be objectively good, but he would say, ‘Vishy won’t do it, because I know him.’ And that sort of experience is very difficult for others to get immediately. Over time, they also get to know you well. It is not about objective things. It is not about saying, ‘this is good and we can do it. These positions are bad but he plays them better. These positions, he won’t like them.’ Since he knows me best, he was in charge of maintaining the global view of how the work was progressing.

Rustam Kasimdzhanov (28, Grandmaster from Uzbekistan, rated 2672): Rustam was the last one to join the team, around April when I was trying to complete the team because I thought four people would be good to prepare what we were planning. Rustam is a former world champion, very strong. I think, in general, he was phenomenal in finding problems. Radoslav and Surya would solve a problem efficiently, but Rustam has a phenomenal sense of danger. Just when we would think we had solved the problem, Rustam would say, ‘Give it to me’. And a few hours later, we would have to start all over again.

Radoslav Wojtaszek (21, Grandmaster from Poland, rated 2599): I had met Radoslav a couple of times. I had met him at Hamburg in the Bundesliga and he made a very positive impression on me. When I was preparing for him, I found him to be a very sophisticated player. At that time, a lot of things had not fallen into place. Last year, in December, I was playing Radoslav and again when I was preparing for him, it struck me what a strong player he is. Actually, I didn’t want to broach the topic there. Somehow, with everyone around, I did not find it appropriate. I wanted to keep it a secret. So I took his email address. He did not know why or he might have guessed it, who knows. Later, I wrote to him and asked him if would like to join my team and so on. He said he would love to. That was very nice.

Surya Shekhar Ganguly (25, Grandmaster from India, 2603): I had Ganguly on my list. We have collaborated before, often through Internet. I just thought that he would make a good ‘second’. (“It would be nice to give you logical reasons but I’ve been inventing them now,” said Anand, with a laugh. He added: “Of course, the team cannot grow incredibly large. In India, I was working with Sasikiran, Saravanan and some other Chennai boys like Konguvel. Then I worked with the Scottish GM, Jonathan Rowson, a bit and a couple of friends and so on.”)

On how the work progressed:

When we made our first list in April, I said, I’ll do this, this and this. You do this. You try to run it like a company, in true management style. But soon you realise it’s hopeless. Everyone has to feel part of the team. We just have to go and plough our heads.

You’ll never know when and where the problems will come. We started with this idea to have the work breakdown and everyone has to have their roles, but soon decided to give it up completely. We had several camps in pieces. We worked in India in April. Then I worked in Germany in June — one session with all four. We arrived in Bonn on October 8, and for three weeks it was all work. But they all enjoyed it, I am sure.

Overall, I would say, just like my chess, my decisions were fairly intuitive. Having said that, I would like to add that it is very difficult to break down everything very logically. Now it is easy to say I had them all but all the certainty comes in hindsight.