Anand had somehow procured a PC in Chennai but had to teach himself how to use it. Friedel was astonished when he saw Anand using the mouse upside down, using this thumb to manipulate the trackball. Anand later said, "He still makes fun of me. At the beginning I was totally proficient in using the mouse upside down. I had no idea. He was absolutely impressed that I could do it perfectly."
In the beginning, Anand would lug a giant 'laptop' as bulky as today's desktops to tournament to the good-humoured ridicule of his peers. But soon they were forced to follow suit as software engines could plumb the depths of a position in minutes, what had taken human analysts weeks if not months.
In computer chess, there is something called the "horizon effect". It is an effect innate in the algorithms that underpin it. Due to the mathematically staggering number of possibilities, a computer by force has to restrict itself, to establish a fixed search depth. Otherwise the calculations would never end. This fixed search depth means that a 'horizon' comes into play, a horizon beyond which the software engine cannot peer.
Anand has shown time and again that he can see beyond this algorithm-imposed barrier, to find new ways, methods of changing the game. Just when every successive wave of peers and rivals thinks they have got his number, Anand sees that one, all important, absolute move.
(Jaideep Unudurti is a freelance writer)