Peter Heine Nielsen on 10 years of Mexico - We are restarting the series!
In 2017 we had started a series "Peter Heine Nielsen on 10 years of Mexico 2007". It was exactly 10 years since Anand had become the undisputed World Champion and in order to celebrate this occasion we had published seven articles from rounds one to seven of the World Championship 2007. These articles had insights by Anand's second at the event Peter Heine Nielsen. IM Sagar Shah had interviewed Nielsen in Lithuania in 2017 and the videos were filled with great insights into how Anand won his second World Championship title. It's been nearly one and a half year since we started the series in 2017. In this period the following of ChessBase India has grown humongously and we think this is the right time to restart the series of articles. For all those who had missed the first seven articles, here's a recap.
Vishy Anand's reign as the World Champion lasted for six years. It all began from 2007 when he won the Round Robin tournament in Mexico. This was followed by beating Kramnik in Bonn 2008, Topalov in Sofia in 2010 and Gelfand in Moscow in 2012. The 2007 Mexico tournament was a momentous occasion for Indian chess as it was the first time that Anand had won the unified World Championship Match. Kramnik, who was the reigning World Champion at that point was also playing in the round robin tournament.
Participants of Mexico 2007
| Player | Nat. | Rtn | Birth |
| Viswanathan Anand | IND | 2792 | 1969 |
| Vladimir Kramnik | RUS | 2769 | 1975 |
| Alexander Morozevich | RUS | 2758 | 1977 |
| Peter Leko | HUN | 2751 | 1979 |
| Levon Aronian | ARM | 2750 | 1982 |
| Peter Svidler | RUS | 2735 | 1976 |
| Boris Gelfand | ISR | 2733 | 1968 |
| Alexander Grischuk | RUS | 2726 | 1983 |
This championship was unusual in that the World Chess Championship was decided by a tournament rather than a match. The FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 was also a double round robin tournament, but at the time the world title was split, with that tournament being for the FIDE world championship, and with Classical World Champion Vladimir Kramnik refusing to take part.
Soon after the 2005 tournament, FIDE announced that the 2007 World Championship would also be a double round robin tournament. In 2006, FIDE announced the World Chess Championship 2006, to reunify the world chess championship. Because the organization of the 2007 tournament was largely in place, conditions of that match included: If Classical champion (Kramnik) defeated FIDE Champion Veselin Topalov,
1. Kramnik would take Topalov's place in the 2007 tournament.
2.The 2007 tournament would be a world championship.
Kramnik won the 2006 match. In June 2007, Kramnik confirmed that he recognized the 2007 tournament as the world championship, while expressing a personal preference for the championship to be decided by a match. FIDE later announced that future world championships (beginning with the World Chess Championship 2008) would be decided by matches between the champion and a challenger. At the same time FIDE announced that, as compensation for being denied entry to the 2007 tournament, Topalov would have special privileges in the World Chess Championship 2010 cycle.
Peter Heine Nielsen's involvement in Anand's victory
Peter Heine Nielsen was Anand's second at the World Championship 2007 in Mexico. He was working day in and out helping Anand in his preparation before and during the event. Naturally he has an insider's view of how things panned out at this important event. When the author of these lines was in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2017, he met with Peter Heine Nielsen.
This series of articles was intended to published in 2017, exactly a decade after Anand had won the World Champion's title. We published seven articles, the links of which can be found below. However, the next seven rounds had not been covered. Over the last year and a half, ChessBase India has grown in a huge way. We think that launching the series once again will help the readers of the newspage, which also includes so many youngsters, understand better what Vishy Anand had achieved ten years ago and how it was such a huge achievement.
Previous articles, videos and games:
After seven rounds of the tournaments this is how the standings looked like:
For all those who would like to refresh their memory with what happened in the first seven rounds can have a look at the link of the articles, videos and pgn files given below.
Road leading up to the tournament
(click on the link above if you would like to read the full article)
R01: Anand saved against Gelfand
R02: Beautiful novelty 17...c5 against Aronian
R03: An opening debacle in the Petroff
R04: No gamble in time scramble
R05: Svidler Marshalled by Anand
R06: Gelfand joins Anand at the top
R07: Anand beats Grischuk with the anti-postional 34.h5!!
We will continue with the next set of seven articles from round eight to fourteen in the coming days. We hope that you will enjoy this series.
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The coach who has won eight World Titles with Carlsen and Anand - Peter Heine Nielsen
@ 15/07/2023 by Sneha Tiwari (en) |
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Nielsen on ten years of Mexico 2007 (R09): Nothing against the Marshall, yet Anand leads by a full point
@ 28/05/2019 by Sagar Shah (en) |
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Nielsen on 10 years of Mexico 2007 (R08): Anand draws against Gelfand, maintains his lead
@ 18/05/2019 by Sagar Shah (en) |
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Peter Heine Nielsen on why you must learn Shogi!
@ 28/07/2017 by Sagar Shah (en) |