Player
Vishwanathan “Vishy” Anand is a five-time World Champion and former World No 1. He became India’s first grandmaster in 1988, shortly before breaking through to the world elite in the early 1990s. Anand won his first World Championship in 2000, defeating Alexei Shirov in a six-game match in the finals of the 2000 FIDE World Chess Championship. Anand then won the 2007 World Chess Championship tournament in Mexico, followed by winning three World Championship Matches against Vladimir Kramnik (2008), Veselin Topalov (2010), and Boris Gelfand (2012). Vishy is also a two-time winner of the World Rapid Championship, and was the fourth player in history to cross the 2800 ELO mark.