I have proved I have the killer instinct: Anand

Chennai, May 24 (PTI) Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand
Monday said by winning his fourth World Chess Championship
title early this month he has proved wrong his critics who
accused him of lacking in killer instinct.
Anand retained his World Chess Championship title after
beating Bulgarian Veselin Topalov in a nerve-wrecking 13th and
final game on May 11 in Sophia and the Chennai-born Indian
said the triumph was a special one.
"Generally people accuse me of lack of nerves or killer
instinct. My nerves worked better.I defended the third title
in a row and that is very special," he told reporters here.
Anand said the contest against Topalov was the toughest
of the World Championship matches that he had played and his
Bulgarian opponent was an incredibly tenacious fighter.
"It was the toughest that I played. Every game was
intense and hard fought. We almost never finished a game under
four hours. It was exceptionally tense and nerve wracking," he
said.
"I knew that any way he was not going to offer draw (12th
game). For the first time, we did not speak to each other
during the match. Only at the end of the game, he spoke," he
said.
"I generally had the edge over him (Topalov). Even there
the dominance was not clear at all. That perhaps makes the
joys of pulling it off in the end even greater," he added.
Comparing his latest world title with the earlier three,
Anand said, "It was tough on the chess board and off it. In
general, I guess this is how the match is supposed to be. It
was just that in the earlier championships, I suddenly built
up a huge lead. But this match went the whole length. In that
sense this championship was the sternest test that I ever
faced."
There were many firsts en-route to Anand's World
Championship title.
It was the first time he travelled by bus to the
Championship because of the volcanic ash emanated from Iceland
It was the first match between "non-Soviets" since 1921. It
was the first time a player defended his title after losing
the first game.
"This is incidentally the first World Championship match
that I played full length. Every other match finished
actually ahead of schedule," Anand said. MORE PTI RE
RBT


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