Mind Master Anand

What goes on inside the head of a world champion? Many champions have shared their analyses of chess games, and even some inside stories. But the mental struggles that surround the chess tournaments and championship matches has not been revealed to the general public to the same extent. So when former world champion Vishy Anande published a book on this topic, it felt like a must-read.

If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details.
Become a Patron!

What can you expect from this book?

Vishy Anand is a very fascinating person for a number of reasons. He was at the top level for more than three decades, and reigned as world champion from 2007 to 2013. Despite losing his title to Carlsen, he kept playing in top events and even managed to win the candidates tournament for a rematch against Carlsen in 2014. He has also won the prestigious Wijk an Zee tournament five times. When I visisted the tournament in 2020, I reflected on the fact that the first time Anand won the tournament (1989), most of the players in the field were not even born. That's longevity!

Mind Master is a book about Anand's life as a chess player. He shares stories about how he got into the game as a child, and how his skills have developed over the years. Most of all, he tells us about how he has experienced the many top-level tournaments and matches that he has played over the years, with particular focus on his world championship matches. He also writes about the many people in his life that have influenced his development, both at the board and outside chess.

What I found most fascinating about this book is how full of self-doubt Anand was at times. In particular around 2012, he describes how his confidence was at an all-time low. This seems quite unreasonable, considering the fact that he was the reigning world champion and objectively one of the strongest players in history. But we all get demons inside our heads from time to time, and Anand is no exception.

The book is well-written, and contains more than 20 pages full of high quality photographs from his life and chess career. Although the title indicates that the books contains important lessons, I think this aspect of the book is far too superficial to provide any real value. But the book is interesting regardless. It is always interesting to get the inside stories from the lives and careers of top players, and this books does precisely this. So if you want to learn more about Anand and his life, I recommend this book.

Who should read this book?

Mind Master is not a typical chess book. Although the book is (sort of) about chess, the chess content is very limited. It is a biography more than anything. So it is an easy read, and does not require any particular knowledge of the game.

About this book

Author:	Viswanathan Anand
Title:	Mind Master - Winning Lessons from a Champion's Life
Type of book:	Biography
Level:	Any

Comments

Popular reviews

Master of strategy

During the past two years, I’ve been working on improving my strategic/positional play. In this process, I have read a number of books, and two books that have long been on my reading list are the strategy books by Johan Hellsten. So when the Swedish chess federation requested reviewers for two of these books, I didn’t hesitate. I am happy that I was given the opportunity to review these books, and hope this review can be of help to you as a reader. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from these books? Johan Hellsten has created a name for himself as one of the leading experts of chess strategy in modern times. His series of strategy books ( Mastering Opening Strategy , Mastering Chess Strategy and Mastering Endgame Strategy ) have received glowing reviews from many parts of the chess world. So it feels good to finally dig into these nuggets. His endgame book is still in my boo...

Winning chess strategies

Chess strategy is one of the most elusive and difficult parts of chess. Compared to the direct and transparent world of chess tactics, strategy can be confusing and opaque. At the patzer level, tactical strikes that gain material or lead to checkmate can be obvious (provided that one understands the tactic). However, in many cases, strong players claim that a move is obvious although it doesn't result in material gain or even a semblance of an attack. We, the patzers of the world, scratch our heads and wonder how on earth anyone can find such moves obvious. How can we take steps towards this deeper level of chess understanding? Picking up a basic strategy book is a good first step. And that's what I did here. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? As a part of my ambition to deepen my understanding of chess strategy, I took on a mission of reading (and rev...

Stop and reassess!

In my very first post on this blog, I reviewed The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman. That was my first step to understand chess strategy. And I actually bought another one of Silman's book at the same time, but for some reason, it took me more than ten years to read. I finally decided to go through it and now I am ready to share my thoughts with you. (It feels like I've written this before.) If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? Before writing this review, I had a few candidates. I am always reading several books in parallel, and I have a number that I'm about to finish. So I asked the Twitter community for input on which book they would like me to review as number 50. And this came out on top. So far I have reviewed 49 books on #patzersreview . Which one should be number 50? My candidates are: - Silman: Reassess your chess workbook - Nunn: Solving in...

Not only for kids

Do you read children's books? If you're and adult, you will probably steer clear of any book that has the phrase "for kids" in it. Since it's for kids, and you're not a kid. Right? Well there are some exceptions, and this is one of them. Author Jeff Coakley has written a number of books "for kids": Winning chess strategy for kids , Winning chess exercises for kids and Winning chess puzzles for kids (vol 1 and 2). Although the titles suggest otherwise, these books are highly instructive and useful for players of all ages. In this review, I have chosen to focus on the first book in his series, Winning chess strategy for kids . What can you expect from this book? Immediately when seeing this book, you will realize that there is one major feature that is "for kids", and that is the artwork. Apart from that, there is no reason to assume that this book cannot be used for adult improvers. I used this book as a part of my tactics training p...

My system should be your system?

One of the greates classics of chess literature. That's at least what it says on the cover. But let's not judge a book by the cover. Instead, we could listen to what others have said about this book. In his review of My system , John Watson writes: "We no longer consider many classics to be essential to a chess education, not since the Internet; but if there’s an exception, Nimzowitch’s work is it". These are big words from a big man. Watson is an authority of chess theory, so his evaluation should not be taken too lightly. Although My system has frequently been mentioned among the greatest books of all time, and has been recommended by many players , it has also been the subject of controversy. Of course, when the book was first published (almost 100 years ago), many ideas in the book challenged many of the established principles of chess theory at the time, and other authorities dismissed the ideas. But also to this day, many people are unimpressed with the b...

Patzer's review

Search This Blog