World Open
VANQUISHING VISHY
How I “Worsted” the World Champ in Hectic Heyday World Open
By IM DAN EDELMAN
Viswanathan Anand has retained his world championship title (our report will appear in August); as the World Open is being played this month, we look back a quarter century when Vishy was savaged in Philadelphia.
ONLY A SELECT FEW PLAYERS CAN brag about an over-the-board encounter with a future world champion. And an astronomically small fraction can boast of a win in a rated game, here on U.S. soil. But in one unusual tournament exactly 25 years ago, a number of talented players did just that. Reigning titleholder Viswanathan Anand visited Philadelphia back in 1987 to participate in the annual World Open, the largest and most lavish Swiss on the planet. In this event the champ met his match, as not one but four players inflicted defeat on the future grandmaster. Anand’s meteoric career can be traced
back to the middle 1980s, when as a teenager he won the India Junior and became an international master at age
40 Chess Life — July 2012
15 in 1984. Within a year he was national champion of India and by 1987 he claimed the World Junior crown. At age 18 he was awarded the grandmaster title, and within a few years he was mowing down the likes of Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov to capture über-tourneys such as Reggio Emilia 1991/92. What was most striking about his play was his lightning speed; Vishy played rapidly and effortlessly against any opposition as if playing a bul- let chess game. I became a friendly acquaintance of
Anand in the first half of the 1990s, particularly through our mutual friend Patrick Wolff. I recall once even helping Anand indirectly with some suggestions and variations for use against Kasparov
in their 1995 World Championship bout in New York. One year, Patrick, Chris Chabris, and I were in the Boston area to celebrate the 30th birthday of fellow Harvard alumni (and USCF Ratings Chairman) Mark Glickman. Anand was in town and joined us; there were some attractive young ladies dancing at the party, though not the kind that keep up to date on the latest opening theory. As a gag we introduced Vishy, the interna- tionally famous celebrity known to a billion people in Asia and soon-to-be challenger for the highest title in chess. “Uhh ... that’s nice,” was the response we obtained from the girls, who could- n’t be bothered to speak to the shy lad from India.
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