It's been three years since Vishy Anand started his reign as undisputed world champion. His journey that is remarkable in retrospect, since to earn his years at the top required not only beating his two premier generational rivals (Kramnik, Topalov) in matches, but also winning one of the more difficult tournaments since AVRO 1938. The world championship tournament held in Mexico City in 2007 brought together eight of the strongest players in the world including then-champion Kramnik, as well as Gelfand, Leko, Svidler, Morozevich, Grischuk and Aronian. The eight players would then play a double round robin (14 rounds) with the winner becoming world champion, and in the event that winner was not Kramnik he would have the right to a match against the winner.
A high quality account of this tournament does not yet exist, although there is this book for bathroom reading:
Presented without editorial comment is the sales pitch:
Julian Simpole, Steve Giddins and Raymond Keene managed to pull of the tournament book four days after 'Mexico 2007' was finished!
Grandmaster Ray Keene was, perhaps, the first see the oppotunities created by computer technology in chess publishing. Formerly players had to wait months, even years, to see a tournament book. Computers revolutionised publishing and made it possible to telescope the entire process into a few days. Keene invented the 'instant book' and this effort is perhaps the most spectacular of all his achievements.
To make up for this glaring gap in the literature, this struggling class A player will do what even Ray Keene could not, and provide the most worthless account of the world championship yet written. Over the next two months we'll take a look at all of Anand's games from this event, win, lose or draw.
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