Viswanathan Anand felicitates Chennai's budding chess players

Chennai, Jan 13 (ANI): World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand on Monday felicitated budding chess players here.

Anand presented awards to the winners of the south zone Mind Champions Academy Chess Championship organised by a non-profit organisation, The Mind Champions Academy along with NIIT (an Indian IT firm)

The programme was organised with an objective of promoting chess in schools to enable development of young minds.

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Addressing reporters at the award ceremony of a chess championship, Anand said the increasing interest of chess among students is fascinating.

"This year 2,03,000 students took part in the championship. I think it was 20 to 25 per cent more from the last year, so I am very happy with that kind of progress," he said.

Winners were enthusiastic to receive awards from the world champion and said they are working hard to become next Vishvanathan Anand.

"I feel very happy to be a part of Mind Champions Academy. My role model is Vishvanathan Anand. We are working very hard to become Vishvanathan Anand in future," said S. Gowtham, a winner of the championship.

Viswanathan Anand, was the first Asian to win the World Chess Championship title. He won the championship in year 2000 and 2007 and 2008.

Anand also holds several records and championship wins to his credit.

He holds the distinction of being the only player to have won five championship titles at the Corus Chess Championships. He also has five chess Oscars, which are given to the best player in the world.

He is one of only four players in chess history to go past the 2,800 mark on the World Chess Federation rating list. He is the first player in chess history to have won the World Championship in three different formats: Knockout, Tournament and Match. (ANI)