'The youth of a nation are trustees of its posterity.' - Benjamin Disraeli
IN a year when the king lost his crown, young prince and an even younger princess charmed a country and surprised the world. Their astonishing brilliance was matched by amazing consistency.
Viswanathan Anand's defence of his World title may have come up to an unexpected end in the dead of winter in Moscow, but Pendyala Harikrishna and Koneru Humpy had already shown the world that Indian chess did not end and begin with the genial genius from Chennai. And how.
The year belonged to them, truly and absolutely. Both the Telugu-speaking prodigies - from Andhra - played so incredibly well right through the year that it is difficult to decide who shone brighter of the two. But if you insist to make a choice between them (especially from a statistical point of view), well, it has to be Humpy. That doesn't make Harikrishna's effort any less important though; and he remains India's best natural talent after Anand.
That girl with a mischievous smile on her lips, stark determination in her eyes, and a steely resolve had a remarkable year. The crowning glory was when she won the World junior girls' chess championship in Athens in August. It was not just the biggest feat by an Indian on the chessboard last year; it was also the greatest individual effort by an Indian after Anand's triumph in the World championship last year and his World junior title in 1987.
The age-limit for the World juniors is 20, and most of the strongest players in that age group had assembled in Athens. To win the championship at 14 was indeed a stupendous feat. She had to win her last two rounds to strike gold. S. Vijayalakshmi, India's first WGM, described it as the greatest achievement yet by an Indian female in any sport.
Humpy hadn't a great start to the year when she could not do anything significant in her first event of the year, at the Goodricke GM tournament in Kolkata. She was perhaps just warming up to what would be a year she would never forget in her life.
In March she went to England for the Oakham GM tournament and made her second WGM norm - her first had come last year along with the Asian junior championship - besides clinching the third place. In June she became India's youngest WGM when she scored her third and final norm at the First Saturday tournament in Budapest.
Soon after, she won the Hotel Lipa International GM tournament, also in Hungary, and made her maiden men's GM norm. No Indian female has yet achieved either feat. She scored seven points from 13 rounds in that Category 7 event.
Then, after pocketing the World juniors - her fourth title since winning the World under-10 in 1997 - she won her second Category 7 GM tournament of the year, the First Saturday tournament in Budapest, but missed a second GM norm by one point. She, however, did not have to wait long before for that norm, as she won the Third Saturday GM tournament in Belgrade. She finished unbeaten in the tourney as she made the norm. Then in December, she did creditably to finish fourth in the Category 10 First Saturday tournament in Budapest after a disastrous start, when she lost both her opening games.
Humpy, sponsored by Bank of Baroda, owes her success to Koneru Ashok, her father who has done a remarkable job as her coach and manager. Though he was not even a National 'A' player, he has proved a good enough trainer to successfully train a prodigy. And just as importantly he's chosen the right tournament for his daughter. Her FIDE rating increased from 2299 to 2484 within a year and is ranked the World No. 13 woman player in the October list. When one last met her, during the AICF Golden Jubilee tournament (December 17-25), she said her ambition was to be a World champion within four years.
It would not be wrong to say that Harikrishna too is a potential World champion. Like Humpy, he too will not forget the year in a hurry. For he became India's youngest GM at 15, beating Anand's record.
He became India's youngest ever qualifier for the World championship in Moscow from the Asian championship in Kolkata, from where he made his final norm. He had made a big impression at the Corus Group B tournament in Wijk aan Zee earlier in the year too, when he made his second norm and finished fifth, and excited being in the same hall as his idols Anand and Garry Kasparov, who were playing in the main tournament.
His career best performance yet came in London, when he won both the Commonwealth championship - again the youngest ever to do so - and the MSO tournament in great style. He had given a bye in the first round, as he reached London only a day after the tournament began (because of the Asian championship in Kolkata). He was invited, along with Krishnan Sasikiran, to the Young Masters tournament in Lausanne, a prestigious event for the world's best junior talents conducted by the IOC.
He disappointed at the Asian juniors in Teheran, though. He won the silver all right, but gold should have been his for the asking.
Harikrishna, sponsored generously by Wipro, is lucky that he has a trainer like Evgeny Vladimirov, who had helped Kasparov to get his first World championship, way back in 1985. And the Kazakhstan coach is impressed with his Indian ward.
Undoubtedly the biggest disappointment for India was Anand's rather surprisingly tame loss to Vasily Ivanchuck of Ukraine, one of the world's brilliant players with an excellent record in strong tournaments, in the semifinals of the World championship in the Russian capital. India's greatest sportsman and the most popular world champion ever, sadly failed to retain his title, which he had won in such splendid fashion last year in New Delhi and Teheran.
Anand, obviously the top seed, had the worst possible start to his campaign in Moscow when he lost his opening game, with white, in the first round against the 128th seed (in a field of 128) and a qualifier from FIDE's internet competition, Olivier Tauzane of France.
After that inexplicable loss, he recovered quickly and looked good enough to show the world again that he was the best player in the knock-out format, until he ran into the unpredictable Ivanchuck, whom he had beaten last year at Shenyang on his way to the triumph at the World Cup.
Unfortunately Anand's best year, that 2000 certainly was, had to be followed by an indifferent year. He also had to go through an experience he is not very used to. He finished last in a six-man field at the Sparkassen Meeting in Dortmund. He had however won a much-hyped match between two World champions - Vladimir Kramnik of Russia (Braingames) being the other at the Mainz Chess Classic in Frankfurt. He beat the Russian via the tie-breakers after a series of 10 rapid games.
He had won the Corsica Masters knock-out tourney too, barely a month before the World championship got underway. In his first tournament of the year at the Corus super GM tournament, where the giants of world chess crossed swords on one stage, behind Kasparov. He repeated his Teheran show to Alexei Shirov, his challenger last year, in the final of the Leon Advanced chess. He also came first at Villarobledo open rapid championship in Spain and at the Merida event in Mexico.
Krishnan Sasikiran, the highest rated Indian after Anand, may not have done as well as he would have liked to, but it was not a bad year for him. He had begun brilliantly when he won the prestigious Hastings Premier - playing in it itself is a privilege - in U.K. in January and won the Asian zonal championship in Colombo, though he wasn't in the best of form. The title also ensured his second successive entry at the World championship, in which, like he did last year in Delhi, he became the only Indian other than Anand to make it to the second round. He had a perfect end to the year when he won his first Open GM event, the AICF Golden Jubilee tournament in Kozhikode on Christmas day.
Three other Indian men were there: Harikrishna, Dibyendu Barua and Surya Shekhar Ganguly, who did no harm to his reputation when he drew twice with former World champion Alexander Khalifman of Russia.
The Kolkata-based youngster had won the bronze at a very strong Asian individual championship - featuring 30 GMs - and made his first GM norm. After his splendid show on home turf he admitted he was more confident than ever now. A lot could be expected from him. P. Konguvel, hugely talented but inconsistent, also made his maiden GM norm, from the gruelling National men's 'A', which was won for a third time by Barua.
At the fag end of the year, twice Asian champion Tejas Bakre, still recovering from a devastating attack of Hepatitis, made his first GM norm too. He did that in style, winning the Category 10 First Saturday tournament. R. B. Ramesh was another to open his GM norm account. He did that in the Biel Open, with a great performance that saw him qualify for the play-off for top four. The agonising wait for his elder brother G.B. Prakash continued however, after getting his final GM norm from Goodricke, as he has not been able to touch 2500 Elo points (a requirement for the title). Sandipan Chanda made his second norm, once again from Goodricke and he also won an International tournament in Germany.
D. V. Prasad scored his second GM norm, quite some time after his first, when he had an outstanding tournament at the Dortmund Open, in spite of conceding a point when he, Abhijit Kunte, who had a disappointing year, and Konguvel failed to turn up.
Sriram Jha completed his IM title and there was a second WGM norm for Aarthie, at the Rilton Cup in Stockholm. Nisha Mohota, the bronze medallist at the Asian championship in Chennai, did well to enter the second round of the women's World championship in Moscow, after the other three Indians, Vijayalakshmi, who won silver in Chennai, her hometown, Aarthie and Pallavi Shah, who had won the Asian zonal title in Colombo, were eliminated in the first round.
The Indian children had a disappointing outing in the Spanish holiday resort of Oropesa del Mar, from where they returned just with a silver through D. Harika. It was the first time India failed to produce a World champion in the competition since Harikrishna won the under-10 title in 1996.
Harika won the medal in the girls' under-12 event and she was the most improved player in the women's section of the year. Not only did she qualify for the National women's 'A' at 10 - a record - but she played so well that not many of our senior players would dare to take her lightly. Given the right backing and guidance, she could go far.
India predictably made a clean sweep at the Asian zonals in Colombo, winning all the six medals. Bhagyashree Thipsay won the silver and Saheli Dhar the bronze in admittedly what wasn't a strong Commonwealth women's championship in London. India won five out of the six possible medals at the Asian junior championship in Teheran, with the Madurai-based M. Kasturi clinching the girls' title. The 14-year-old thus also became an IWM and got a WGM norm. K. Ratnakaran, a modest lad from an even more modest background in Kerala, turned out to be another surprise when he won the bronze. India picked up three medals in the Asian children's championship at Bikaner too. At the British championships also, the Indians excelled with the two brothers from Kerala - Gowri Shankar and Vishnu Vardhan making an impact.
While Kasparov continued to be the world's strongest player (he beat Kramnik in Moscow in a battle of classical, rapid and blitz games), 18-year-old Ruslan Ponomariov, who will contest an-all Ukrainan World championship in January, emerged as the outstanding player of the year. Once the world's youngest GM, he was also superb in the World team championship in Armenia, where he was largely responsible for Ukraine's triumph.
Among women, of course, Judit Polgar of Hungary, continued to lead the ranking for a 12th successive year. The find of the year in women's chess was 17-year-old Alexandria Kosteniuk of Russia, who was a revelation in the women's World championship in Moscow, despite losing to Zhu Chen of China in the final. Zhu Chen thus ensured that the World title remained in China, the undisputed superpower in the women's game, though the defending champion Xie Jun and challenger Qin Kanying did not play in Moscow.
FIDE drastically cut the time of a classical game from seven hours to four for its official tournaments and introduced the anti-doping measures for the first time during the World championship (as a step towards making chess an Olympic discipline).
On the domestic front, history was made in this year's National men's 'B' championship when Swati Ghate became the first woman in history to qualify for the National men's 'A'. Within hours, Vijayalakshmi also qualified, making the next National 'A' even more worth-looking forward to. Swati's effort was all the more remarkable because she finished runner-up in Nagpur to Jha. Vijayalakshmi would also look back the year when she won her fourth straight National women's 'A'. But it was also the year when she lost her No. 1 ranking among Indian women in the FIDE list, to Humpy, for the first time as a 15-year-old in 1996.
The year will also be remembered for the most tragic incident in the history of Indian chess: on September 23 two promising children from Andhra, M. Abhinav and D. Minu, both Asian age-group champions, died in a road accident near Puri along with three others on their way to taking part in a FIDE rated tourney.
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