Vishy Anand: preference

Transcript context

…What keeps you going? What motivates you? I like playing chess. A couple of years ago, I decided that maybe playing full time, playing the whole year round and trying to compete at the highest level wasn’t worth it in terms of the amount of time and effort I would have to put in for the results I expected. I decided to semi-retire, a decision made easy in the pandemic because everyone was semi-retired in the pandemic. The key thing was not to come back after the pandemic was over. I played a little bit here and there whenever I could because I still like playing, and for me, chess tournaments are primarily social events where you meet everyone, and you hang out with everyone again. When I did all that, I enjoyed myself. Then I would say, “Okay, now for four months, I’m not going to play anything.” Much longer break than before. Also, I’m living in India more or less the whole time when I’m not playing. That’s changed a lot. Some of it is family. My son is growing up, so you also want to prioritize what you’re doing with your time, and so on. I really enjoy the few tournaments that I play. When I play these rapid and blitzes and I have these one or two events in the year, four or five months before leading up to them, I start training again. Just to get back in this frame of mind where chess is not just some philosophical thing where you can do this and you can do that. It’s concrete moves, like MVL said. The most important skill in chess is, if I was sitting at a board now with the clock ticking, what would I make in this position? Then suddenly, the infinite variety of choices you have becomes irrelevant. You have to make only one move. How do you switch to that frame of mind? I try to stick there, but I really love analyzing and working on chess. And maybe even, just like for Hikaru, having something else fill part of your life allows you to come back to chess with much more enthusiasm, these long breaks. Then, when I get back to chess, I’m much more enthusiastic about playing, and I look forward to it. That might be a huge fact as well. Do you hate losing as much as Kasparov does?…

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