Anand's reign as world champion continues

World champion Viswanathan Anand prevailed in a series of rapid chess games against challenger Boris Gelfand to retain his world title at Moscow.

After three weeks of regular play ended with the score tied at 6-6, Anand and Gelfand faced off in a series of tie-breakers on Wednesday, with the title of world champion and $1.53 million going to the winner.

Showing the speed and coolness under pressure which has characterised his career, the Chennai-based Grandmaster stayed ahead of Gelfand on the clock at the key moments in the 25 minutes per player tiebreakers and, despite plenty of chances, Gelfand was unable to break through Anand's defences in any of the four games.

Anand, who won the four game series 2.5-1.5 (with a win and three draws), will keep the FIDE world title he has held since 2007 for another two years.

Anand's earlier world titles:

2000-2001: New Delhi-Iran: Won for the first time winning in knockout format. Starting with 128 players, Anand marched his way ahead in New Delhi to set up the finale with Alexey Shirov of Spain. It was a six-games final that lasted only till the fourth. Anand won three and drew one at Tehran in Iran to be crowned the world champion.

2007 Mexico City (Mexico): Pitted against the best in the world in a match tournament spread over 14-games between eight players, Anand was in his element and won this event in style.

This also gave him the right to play the next world championship in a match format against the seemingly invincible Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.

2008 Bonn (Germany): The World championship was back to a match format, something which the chess world had been craving for a long time. Anand started as the underdog against Kramnik but the entire world saw a grand transformation in the Indian.

It was a 12-games match that ended after 11. Anand won three, lost one and drew the remaining seven to reach 6.5 points.

The transformation was in preparation. Kramnik was simply outdone thanks to some extremely well done homework. Anand became the first player in the history to win world championship in three different formats: Knock out, match tournament and match.

2010 Sofia (Bulgaria): It was eruption of an Icelandic volcano that disrupted all flights across Europe. Anand had to undertake a 30-hours journey by road to reach Sofia. He asked for three days extension but was granted only one day.

He was playing against all odds against the lion — Veselin Topalov — in his own den. Anand started with a first round loss but won the title winning the last game with black pieces. The loss was shattering for Topalov. He slipped from being the top player then to number 12 now.