Review: Viswanathan Anand: My Career, Volume 2

In a timely appearance, my review of the DVD Viswanathan Anand: My Career, Volume 2 is now online at ChessCafe. It is also permanently archived here. This is a brief excerpt:

Volume 1 of Viswanathan Anand: My Career covered Anand’s career through 1999. Volume 2 begins in the year 2000 and includes games as recent as June 2008. This DVD contains 1,037 of Anand’s games during this period, and he annotates a number of them over the course of the more than four hours of video segments. As in the first volume, he adds personal and humorous anecdotes along the way.

For example, in September of 2000, Anand won the FIDE World Cup tournament. He was met with throngs of fans upon his arrival in India, many of whom thought that winning the World Cup meant that he was now the world champion. When asked what his next plans were, he explained that he hoped to win the World Championship later that year in New Delhi and they asked, “Are there two world championships in one year?” Anand was caught a bit off-guard until he realized the fans’ misunderstanding. “I thought that was cute,” he says.