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Journalism of Courage
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand defeated over 60,000 opponents from the online chess community in a special online ‘Vote Chess’ match.
Anand was playing with white pieces and ended the game with a checkmate in just 24 moves. The game was organised to mark the 25th anniversary of the Kasparov vs The World match where former world champion Garry Kasparov took on over 50,000 voters on the Microsoft Network (MSN) and won the game after four months and 62 moves. Kasparov later called it “the greatest game in the history of chess.”
In the unique match organised by Chess dot com, the Indian legend’s opponents could register to vote for their next move against Anand. Each side had the whole day to make a single move. This meant that the 60,000+ opponents that Anand faced had 24 hours to cast their vote on their next move with black pieces. The World team had the support of four coaches: IM Tania Sachdev, IM Sagar Shah, IM Kostya Kavutskiy, and FM James Canty. The World’s team were able to chat in the system’s comments section, exchanging ideas and strategies to try to defeat Anand.
The Indian chess legend started by pushing his pawn to the c4 square, opting for an English Opening rather than his usually preferred choice of 1…e4. The English Opening is the fourth most-commonly played opening move in chess which allows the white queen the freedom to attack while also restricting black from responding with 1…d5.
The former world champion then brought out his knights for a Four Knights, Kingside Fianchetto Line. By the 15th move, the World was already three pawns up. But from that point on, Anand’s queen had started advancing on the World’s king, putting it under duress.
The World’s queen was isolated on the distant island which was the a5 square from move 17, and could only watch mutely as Vishy’s queen and rook, with the occasional help from a bishop, cornered the king and checkmated it.
