Anand Interview

Der Spiegel did a wonderful interview with Chess World Champion Viswanathan Anand, which is translated and posted online at the ChessBase website. I found his reflections on the future of high level chess, given the impact of computers on the game, fascinating:

Ten years ago I said that 2010 would be the end, chess would be exhausted. But it is not true, chess will not die so quickly. There are still many rooms in the building which we have not yet entered. Will it happen in 2015? I don't think so. For every door the computers have closed they have opened a new one. ... Twenty years ago we were doing things that don't work today because of computers. We used to bluff our way through games, but today our opponents analyse them with a computer and recognize in a split second what we were up to. Computers do not fall for tricks. On the other hand we can undertake more complex preparation. In the past years there have been spectacular games that would not have been possible without computers. The possibility of playing certain moves would never have occurred to us. It is similar to astrophysics: their work may not be as romantic as in previous times, but they would never have progressed so far with paper and pencil.

Anand's championship match with Kramnik starts October 12 and will be held in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn.