What was Tendulkar doing during Anand-Gelfand game?

Thats the name under which Russian GM and World Number 13 Peter Svidler plays online because he loves cricket and Sachin.

WHEN Viswanathan Anand was defending his World Championship title against Boris Gelfand in Moscow last month,the spotlight was on chess. On the margins of that tense faceoff,however,was a quirky tale of a Russian grandmaster who was sitting in the commentary box,his obsession with cricket and with Sachin Tendulkar.

For years now,Peter Svidler,reporting on the Anand-Gelfand game for the FIDE website (the international chess federation) website,has used the handle Tendulkar to play chess online at the popular Internet Chess Club (ICC) server which has over 200,000 members including Garry Kasparov and many top GMs.

I chose Tendulkar because I meant it as some innocent fun. The intention was to create an illusion,sort of a practical joke on the Western reaction and speculation of people who would assume that somebody who plays chess well and uses an Indian sportspersons handle must be Anand, Svidler,35,told The Sunday Express. And it worked like a charm.

For,being an elite GM himself,ranked 13th in the world,Svidler kept winning more than losing and many thought he was Anand himself playing under Tendulkars name.

On the ICC,people would ask, Are you Anand?. I would say no and they never believed it, says Svidler.

How did a Russian take to cricket? While in Greece to play a chess tournament,Svidler was convinced by British GM Nigel Short to spend the evening watching an India-Pakistan World Cup 99 on television. I didnt know the rules but it was actually the atmosphere of a cricket match that attracted me to the game, he said.

So when it came to choosing a name on the chess site,he decided to go with what he knew was best. Im a long-time Andrew Strauss fan but if it had to be an Indian,it had to be (Sachin) Tendulkar. I like him and Rahul Dravid a lot. I admire them not only as players but for the persons they are, Svidler said.

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Having won the World Chess Cup in 2011,Svidler earned himself a ticket for the Candidates Tournament,the winner of which will challenge Anand at the 2013 World Championship. And if he were to get there,Svidler admits he has a secret weapon to confound the Indian with cricket.

You can make out from his (Anands) reactions that he is not enjoying talking about cricket,that he isnt interested in the game. So I use a cricket conversation to torture him sometimes but being the person he is,he always responds very politely.