Scan barcode
A review by rbharath
Mind Master: Winning Lessons from a Champion's Life by Viswanathan Anand
5.0
This book is about Vishwanathan Anand’s professional chess career, but it is also a lot more – a tribute to his entire support system, family and passion which goes into the making of a world champion, and has lessons for life itself. For Indians, Anand is a national icon – a champion (the first chess grandmaster from India) who represents the country where the game originated with great grace & passion. Often being a nice guy is not exactly good news, the media would much rather write about “temperamental”, “erratic”, “angry”, “arrogant” achievers. As a result, a lot of what Anand achieved was regarded as either being lucky or not enough (for a 5-time world champion!) and has been less written about.
The book oscillates between multiple timelines but has coverage of Anand’s early years – the support from his mother, his gradual ascent to becoming a grandmaster and his professional career right till his loss to Magnus Carlsen in the World Championship. There is considerable coverage on the preparation for each of the big world championship tournaments and the contributions of his family (his wife and at times earlier his dad doubling up as his manager to negotiate contracts) & the support team, and the politics involved. This is perhaps one of the few books you will read where the ideas & efforts of the support team are acknowledged so graciously. The matches against Kasparov, Kramnik, Topalov, Gelfand & Carlsen all make for very interesting reading. There are also discussions around the growing role of technology. Anand mentions how many years back when Ken Thompson (designer of the original Unix operating system) was asked if computers could learn strategy – he answered without hesitation that it would happen without doubt as strategy was in simple terms “long term tactics”. Apparently, many chess players knew that machines would overtake them at some point, though they preferred not to go public with that. There is this interesting narration on the preparation for his match with Topalov. Anand’s team came to know that Topalov had access to the latest version of the Rybka chess engine running on 128 core hardware. Coincidentally, Anand received help from Kramnik & Kasparov and was able to prevail in a close match over Topalov.
Anand admits that starting with his title defense against Gelfand, he has found it difficult to find new ideas and re-invent his game. He acknowledges how Magnus Carlsen was far better prepared – had new ideas and had thoroughly researched Anand’s style.
This book is an excellent read. It could have been even better if it were better organized. The book in fact gets off to a very average start with the first paragraph being poorly written. But it recovers after that, and the overall content is top class. Anand has been an exceptional ambassador for the game and would be a great mentor and is an inspiration for the next generation of chess players.
Strongly recommended – you only need a working knowledge of the game as there are very few game analyses included.
My rating: 4.5 / 5.
The book oscillates between multiple timelines but has coverage of Anand’s early years – the support from his mother, his gradual ascent to becoming a grandmaster and his professional career right till his loss to Magnus Carlsen in the World Championship. There is considerable coverage on the preparation for each of the big world championship tournaments and the contributions of his family (his wife and at times earlier his dad doubling up as his manager to negotiate contracts) & the support team, and the politics involved. This is perhaps one of the few books you will read where the ideas & efforts of the support team are acknowledged so graciously. The matches against Kasparov, Kramnik, Topalov, Gelfand & Carlsen all make for very interesting reading. There are also discussions around the growing role of technology. Anand mentions how many years back when Ken Thompson (designer of the original Unix operating system) was asked if computers could learn strategy – he answered without hesitation that it would happen without doubt as strategy was in simple terms “long term tactics”. Apparently, many chess players knew that machines would overtake them at some point, though they preferred not to go public with that. There is this interesting narration on the preparation for his match with Topalov. Anand’s team came to know that Topalov had access to the latest version of the Rybka chess engine running on 128 core hardware. Coincidentally, Anand received help from Kramnik & Kasparov and was able to prevail in a close match over Topalov.
Anand admits that starting with his title defense against Gelfand, he has found it difficult to find new ideas and re-invent his game. He acknowledges how Magnus Carlsen was far better prepared – had new ideas and had thoroughly researched Anand’s style.
This book is an excellent read. It could have been even better if it were better organized. The book in fact gets off to a very average start with the first paragraph being poorly written. But it recovers after that, and the overall content is top class. Anand has been an exceptional ambassador for the game and would be a great mentor and is an inspiration for the next generation of chess players.
Strongly recommended – you only need a working knowledge of the game as there are very few game analyses included.
My rating: 4.5 / 5.