Viswanathan Anand Became India's First Grandmaster in 1988 and Won the World Chess Championship Five Times, in 2000, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012

Viswanathan Anand clinched the FIDE World Championship in Tehran on 24 December 2000, winning the fourth game of the final against Alexei Shirov. He won the title again in Mexico City in 2007 and defended it in 2008, 2010 and 2012, five wins in all. FIDE’s own records list him as a grandmaster from 1988, the first India produced.

This is his career in dates and scores, from a Madras club to the office he now holds at FIDE, the world federation.

The final in Tehran

That year’s championship was a knockout. ESPN describes a field of 100 players meeting in short matches, with the early rounds in New Delhi and the final in Tehran. Anand reached the six-game final against Shirov, and the games are on record at The Week in Chess: a draw in game one, then wins with White in game two (a Ruy Lopez, 64 moves), with Black in game three (a Sicilian, 41 moves) and with White in game four (a French Defence, 41 moves). Shirov resigned game four, the final stood at 3.5 to 0.5, and the last two games were not needed.

Across the whole event The Week in Chess counts him unbeaten, with eight wins and 12 draws, and says his only losing position came in the quarter-final against the defending champion Alexander Khalifman. Writing on 25 December 2000, the Tribune called him India’s first chess world champion.

The Gazette of India for 22 March 2001 lists him among that year’s Padma Bhushan awardees, under Sports, Chess, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

A Madras club and a mother who taught him at six

According to the EBSCO biography, Anand was born on 11 December 1969 in Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu, and grew up in Madras, now Chennai. His mother began teaching him chess when he was six, and he went on to the Tal Chess Club in Madras for lessons from the chess master Manuel Aaron.

A win in the 1983 Indian sub-junior championship came with all nine games taken, EBSCO says. ChessBase’s career profile adds that he played his first Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki in 1984, scoring 7.5 out of 11. By 1985 he had become the youngest Indian to earn the International Master title, a year FIDE’s own profile confirms, and he received the Arjuna Award. In 1986 came the national championship, which ChessBase calls India’s youngest, and top board for India at the Dubai Olympiad.

Baguio 1987: the junior title and the first grandmaster

Baguio in the Philippines hosted the 1987 World Junior Championship from 19 July to 3 August, with 52 players and 13 rounds. Olimpbase and the Belgian Chess History archive both report Anand on 10 out of 13, unbeaten. Vasyl Ivanchuk of the Soviet Union was second on 9.5 and Grigory Serper third on 9. No other Indian had won the event, EBSCO’s biography says.

ChessBase says the result gave him his first grandmaster norm, and records that he had missed norms the year before, by half a point at the 1986 Tata Steel tournament in Calcutta and by a full point at the Lloyds Bank Masters in England. FIDE lists him as a grandmaster from 1988, and its museum page calls him “the first Grandmaster from India.”

The Gazette of India for 19 March 1988 lists a Padma Shri that year for Viswanathan Anand, under Sports, Chess, Madras.

Kasparov in New York, then the undisputed title in Mexico City

A decade of qualifying cycles came before 2000. FIDE’s museum page records a semi-final loss to Anatoly Karpov in the 1990 to 1993 cycle. Anand then won the Professional Chess Association’s challenger cycle and played Garry Kasparov for the title in New York in 1995, losing 10.5 to 7.5, as FIDE’s page on Kasparov states.

The world title was by then split. FIDE ran its own knockout championship, which Anand won in 2000, while Vladimir Kramnik held the so-called Classical title after beating Kasparov 8.5 to 6.5 in London that year. In 2006 Kramnik beat Veselin Topalov in a unification match, 2.5 to 1.5 in a rapid playoff after the classical games ended 6 to 6, according to Chessgames.

A championship tournament in Mexico City followed, from 13 to 29 September 2007. Eight players met in a double round-robin of 14 rounds. Anand scored 9, Kramnik and Boris Gelfand 8 each, and The Week in Chess reported that Anand had become the undisputed champion. ESPN gives his record as four wins, 10 draws and no losses.

Three defences in Bonn, Sofia and Moscow

Kramnik challenged him in Bonn in October 2008. Anand won games three, five and six, lost game ten and drew the rest. A draw with White in game eleven gave him 6.5 to 4.5 with one game unplayed.

In Sofia, from 24 April to 11 May 2010, Veselin Topalov won games one and eight, and Anand won games two, four and 12. The 12th and last game decided it, and Anand won 6.5 to 5.5.

In Moscow in May 2012, Gelfand won game seven and Anand won game eight in 17 moves, according to ESPN, and the 12 classical games ended 6 to 6. Anand won the rapid playoff 2.5 to 1.5 and kept the title.

The government honoured him in the same period. The Press Information Bureau’s list of 25 January 2008 names Anand among 13 Padma Vibhushan recipients, with Sachin Tendulkar and the late Sir Edmund Hillary also listed under Sports. The President’s notification of 10 May 2008 in the Gazette of India confirms the award.

His FIDE rating had passed 2800 on the April 2006 list, where The Week in Chess shows him at 2803. On the March 2011 list Chess.com has him at 2817, ahead of Magnus Carlsen on 2815.

Chennai in 2013 and Sochi in 2014

Magnus Carlsen challenged him in Chennai in November 2013. The Week in Chess records ten games played, with Carlsen winning games five, six and nine and the other seven drawn. The match stood at 6.5 to 3.5 after game ten, on 22 November, and the remaining two games were not played.

Anand won the 2014 Candidates tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk, finishing first with a round to spare, FIDE’s museum page says, and earned a rematch. In Sochi that November he won game three, Carlsen won games two, six and 11, and Carlsen took the match 6.5 to 4.5 after game 11, according to The Week in Chess. FIDE’s page on Carlsen gives the same scores for both matches.

Rapid titles and the rating list now

Anand won the FIDE World Rapid Championship at Cap d’Agde in October 2003. He drew his semi-final with Peter Svidler and won a blitz playoff, then beat Kramnik 1.5 to 0.5 in the final, The Week in Chess reports. He won the world rapid title a second time in Riyadh in December 2017, finishing on 10.5 points in a 15-round event and beating Vladimir Fedoseev 1.5 to 0.5 in a blitz tie-break between the two.

FIDE’s ratings page for October 2026 shows Anand on 2739 in classical chess, 2694 in rapid and 2706 in blitz. He is 14th among active players in the world, and third among Indians.

The academy and the federation

Anand announced the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy on 14 December 2020, and its first lectures began in January 2021. ChessBase lists the first group as Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, Raunak Sadhwani and R. Vaishali, with Anand as chief mentor. WestBridge’s managing director Sandeep Singhal told ChessBase that Anand sets goals for each player and writes quarterly reports on them. Gukesh became world champion in December 2024, as FIDE’s report of 13 December 2024 records.

ChessBase India reported on 18 July 2026 that India had 99 grandmasters, with Rathanvel V S as the 99th. The first of them, 38 years earlier, was Anand, from Chennai in Tamil Nadu.

At the FIDE General Assembly in Samarkand on 26 and 27 September 2026, the decisions list reads: “To elect Mr. Timur Turlov as FIDE President and Mr. Viswanathan Anand as FIDE Deputy President.” FIDE’s October 2026 profile of Anand lists the same office.