It is important that you don't let your opponent impose his style of play on you. A part of that begins mentally. At the chessboard if you start blinking every time he challenges you then in a certain sense you are withdrawing. That is very important to avoid.

Viswanathan Anand

Categorized in : Play Challenges Psychology

Carlsen will be ridiculously difficult to play against. (on the 2013 World Championship match)

Viswanathan Anand

championship play world

You need to motivate yourself, no matter what-definitely when things are bad, but also when things are good. Or else, you risk becoming complacent.

Viswanathan Anand

risk matter needs

Parents, first and foremost, it is important to... understand and recognise the activities your child is naturally gravitating towards. It's important also to ensure that your child likes what he or she is doing. I believe in exposing children to as many hobbies and extracurricular activities as possible.

Viswanathan Anand

parent believe children

Chess as a sport requires a lot of mental stamina, and this is what that makes it different from a physical sport. Chess players have a unique ability of taking in a lot of information and remembering relevant bits. So, memory and mental stamina are the key attributes.

Viswanathan Anand

unique sports memories

Confidence is very important - even pretending to be confident. If you make a mistake but do not let your opponent see what you are thinking then he may overlook the mistake.

Viswanathan Anand

important mistake thinking

If revenge motivates you, go for it! But the main thing is to set your game in order.

Viswanathan Anand

revenge games order

I attend to my fitness. I go the gym every day and try to maintain my physical fitness; without that, it is tough to take challenges on the chess board.

Viswanathan Anand

boards challenges trying

Intuition in chess can be defined as the first move that comes to mind when you see a position.

Viswanathan Anand

intuition mind moving

In any match, there are few critical moments where there's no second best decision. The rest of the moves are intuitive.

Viswanathan Anand

critical-moments decision moving

Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it

Viswanathan Anand

youngsters chess forget

Each match I play is the most important one yet.

Viswanathan Anand

important play

Grandmasters decline with age. That's a given. There is nothing special about the age of 40, but age eventually takes its toll. That much is clear. Beyond that it's about how long you can put off the effects and compensate for them. Mistakes will crop in but you try to compensate for them with experience and hard work.

Viswanathan Anand

hard-work mistake long

I think an important lesson from the game is that once you have made a move, you cannot take it back. You really have to measure your decisions. You think a lot. You evaluate your choices very carefully. There's never any guarantee about what's going to follow once you have made a decision.

Viswanathan Anand

games moving thinking

For me, each game is a new challenge, which has to be dealt with rationally and systematically. At that time, every other thought fades into oblivion.

Viswanathan Anand

oblivion challenges games

For every door the computers have closed they have opened a new one.

Viswanathan Anand

computer chess doors

There is always the risk of being over-confident when you are preparing to face a weaker player.

Viswanathan Anand

risk player faces

Just before a game, I try to keep a clear mind so that I can focus better. I'm the kind of person who plays fast and relies a lot on intuition, so being at peace with myself is vital. Saying my daily prayers helps me achieve this heightened state of mind.

Viswanathan Anand

prayer games play

The broader the chess player you are, the easier it is to be competitive, and the same seems to be true of mathematics - if you can find links between different branches of mathematics, it can help you resolve problems. In both mathematics and chess, you study existing theory and use that to go forward.

Viswanathan Anand

different player use

A win is a win, which is about that particular moment.

Viswanathan Anand

particular moments winning

When I was about six, I saw my elder siblings play chess and pestered my mother into teaching me. Very soon, I was beating everyone at home, and they thought it would be good to join a club. So my sister would take me to the Tal chess club on Thursdays and weekends.

Viswanathan Anand

sibling teaching mother