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The President of the Republic met with Chess Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand25.11.2004
President Arnold Rüütel today at Kadriorg met with India's top chess player Viswanathan Anand who was accompanied by the Vice-President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), Morten Sand; the President of the Estonian Chess Federation Carmen Kass, the President of the Finnish Central Chess Federation, Arto Satonen, and representatives of several other chess organisations.
At the meeting, the President of the Republic said that chess had an important role in the culture of Estonia. "Estonia wishes to be a chess country also in the future. Therefore we are continuously interested in organising Chess Olympics in Estonia, which would give a significant impetus to the development of chess in our region as a whole", said President Rüütel. The Vice-President of FIDE, Morten Sand promised to forward that message to the management of FIDE and added that Estonia could certainly have success provided it had a good strategy.
President Rüütel and Grandmaster Anand talked about the use of computers in chess. According to the Grandmaster the computers are capable to maintain a stable level while human brain gets tired, but the computers are not yet better than people, they simply confirm what we already know. The ex-World Champion added that in chess we can find elements of art, science and sport, but he himself takes chess first of all as a sport.
Talking about the role of Paul Keres in the history of chess, Viswanathan Anand said that especially before the rise of Mikhail Botvinnik it could have been possible for Keres to become a World Champion, but unfortunately the World War II eliminated that chance. According to the Grandmaster, Paul Keres as a chess player had very universal style, and therefore it is easy to understand his matches also today.
Ex-World Champion Viswanathan Anand who holds the second place after Garry Kasparov on the FIDE rating list is in Estonia in connection with a rapid chess tournament organised by the Estonian Chess Federation on November 24-27 in Tallinn.
Public Relations Unit of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, November 25, 2004
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