Here’s a recent nice interview of Viswanathan Anand published in the New Indian Express. Anand is one of the world’s greatest chess players and certainly the nicest and most gentlemanly world champions of modern times. This except from the interview sums up his view of trash-talking in chess “I don’t read what my opponents say about me. I’ve always believed and maybe my Indian upbringing comes in here, if you believe in yourself, you don’t need to chide your opponent or talk about your greatness. People understand it without you having to say it.”

He comes to this match as the challenger, having lost the title of world chess champion to his great opponent Magnus Carlsen last year. There are significant disadvantages: he’s still almost twice the age of his opponent in a game where – although what it seems is that two persons sit at a board for hours – physical fitness is of crucial importance. His opponent has some reasonable grounds for his fans to claim that he’s the greatest player ever. And his style of play has been difficult for Anand to adapt to – witness the last world championship and the recent games between the two. Nonetheless it should be a much closer match this time round. And who knows? Luck or Caissa may favour the ageing Tiger of Madras.