Anand in Tanzania June 1st
Former World Champion and current Challenger Viswanathan Anand will be traveling to Tanzania to participate in a number of activities beginning June 1st in Dar es Salaam. Anand will visit for five days on invitation from Tanzania Chess Foundation chairman Vinay Choudhury. According to media IPPMedia.com, Choudhury states,
“We have changed the dates to suit his program, he is very busy and he requested us if he can come earlier than planned. We could not hesitate but accept his request, He will do a lot of activities including visiting some Schools where the Chess Foundation is conducting trainings for young players.”
He added that Anand’s visits to Tanzania and the international match against Kenya has been sponsored by SpiceNet Tanzania Limited. This organization also hosted a very successful Tanzanian Open last summer which was won by GM Nigel Short. Choudhury said Tanzania does not have a rated chess player and he hopes to help change that.
Queen and King Indian…
Aruna & Viswanathan Anand
On June 5th, Tanzania will play against visiting counterparts from Kenya in an international friendly to be staged at the Dar es Salaam Gymkhana Club (DGC). Anand has been to Africa on a couple of other occasions, (Botswana and South Africa). One of his corporate sponsors (NIIT) arranged those trips. In fact, Anand is the only sitting World Champion to visit Africa and has been a great inspiration to developing countries throughout the continent and the world.
He is a real gentleman.
Anand is certainly under-appreciated. Magnus Carlsen is the World Champion and it was expected to increase attention to chess from the mainstream. Apart from a few appearances with tech moguls and a couple of articles and commercials, not sure how to measure this impact. If Carlsen-Anand cannot attract sponsorship for the match and Norway cannot get enough support from its own government to host an Olympiad, then chess is in trouble… even with the expectations of Carlsen. It would be interesting if he lost his title to Anand in November! I’m sure they will look at a two-year cycle.
Agree with you 100%. Anand is probably the most under appreciated world champ since Fischer. At least in my opinion.
At least Fischer was crediting with inspiring people worldwide with the “Fischer Boom”. Anand has gotten no credit for winning in every format and defending it four times. I doubt if Carlsen will as lengthy a reign as people are predicting. Defending every year is quite a task.
So, no one in the US can generate funds for a World Championship???
Chess has little marketability here (as it stands now) and sponsors don’t see how to capitalize off of it. Before Rex Sinquefield took over six years ago, the U.S. could barely hold their national championship tournament. It remains to be seen whether anyone in the U.S. would be willing to put up the funds to host it.
https://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=68583