Anand To Debut As Guest Commentator In Chess.com Candidates Live Show

In his first-ever gig as a commentator, GM Viswanathan Anand will be part of the Chess.com commentary team for the FIDE Candidates Tournament. The five-time world champion will be checking in regularly, along with other top grandmasters.

The highly anticipated FIDE Candidates Tournament is just a week away, and it just got even more exciting.

Vishy Anand, the winner of five world championship titles in three different formats and a three-time winner of a candidates tournament himself, will be a regular guest commentator on the matches. It will be the first time ever that the Indian legend will take up the commentator role, although it will not be his first time working with Chess.com/ChessKid. Last summer, he became the Chief ChessKid Mentor of India.

Anand's long list of achievements is too long to mention in full here, but his efforts in just the world championship cycles are highly impressive.

After qualifying for the Candidates matches for the first time in 1993, he won both the 1994 PCA Candidates cycle and the 1997 FIDE Candidates knockout tournament. In 2000, he won another big knockout, the FIDE World Championship Knockout. Anand was crowned world champion for the first time.

In 2007, he won his second title by winning an eight-player, double round-robin tournament in Mexico City. He then successfully defended his title in matches against Vladimir Kramnik (2008), Veselin Topalov (2010) and Boris Gelfand (2012) before losing to Magnus Carlsen in 2013.

Defying annoyingly persistent rumors of his near-retirement, Anand duly won the very next Candidates Tournament in 2014. His World Rapid Championship title in 2017 further demonstrated his amazing and high-level longevity at the chessboard. (See also Chess.com's profile of Anand.)

This time, Anand missed qualification for the Candidates—but don't rule him out just yet for the next cycle!—which opened up the possibility to provide commentary instead.

Anand will be joining the commentary team from his home in Chennai during most rounds and will bring highly instructive insights, fun stories, and vast experience into the show.

Other guest commentators include U.S. number-two player GM Wesley So, U.S. number-four GM Hikaru Nakamura, and Africa's number-one GM Bassem Amin. More names will be revealed soon.

Nakamura is a five-time U.S. Champion and represented the United States in five Olympiads. He was part of the winning team in 2016 in Baku, and he also won team bronze in 2006 and 2008.

Nakamura is also a winner of the prestigious Wijk aan Zee tournament (2011). A two-time winner of the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship, Nakamura currently holds the world's highest FIDE blitz rating.

As one of the most popular chess streamers, he is also a highly experienced commentator. (See also Chess.com's profile of Nakamura.)

Currently the number two in America, So is the reigning Fischer Random World Champion, a title he won by beating Carlsen last October in Oslo.

He won the Grand Chess Tour in 2016 and won Olympic gold in the same year. Like Nakamura, So won once in Wijk aan Zee, in 2017. He also won the U.S. Championship in 2017.

So is also a two-time finalist of the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship. Like Anand, So will be making his debut as a commentator. (See also Chess.com's profile of So.)

GM Bassem Amin is the first African chess player who has crossed the 2700 Elo mark. Born in Egypt, Amin is a grandmaster since 2006. He is also a doctor, having graduated from the faculty of Medicine of the Tanta University in 2012.

The list of regular commentators for our English show on Chess.com/TV includes GM Robert Hess, GM Daniel Naroditsky, GM Aman Hambleton, GM Eric Hansen, GM Simon Williams, IM Danny Rensch, and WFM Alexandra Botez.

We'll also provide international coverage on our major Twitch channels:

• Spanish: Luis Fernandez Siles with GMs Carlos Matamoros, Julio Granda, Jose Ibarra, Jose Gascon, Sandro Mareco, and IM Michael Rahal, WIM Ivette Garcia, WFM Anna Cramling and El Capa
• Russian: GMs Vladimir Dobrov and Alex Yermolinsky
• French: Kevin Bordi with GMs Matthieu Cornette, Yannick Gozzoli, Fabien Libiszewski, and Romain Edouard, with GMs Etienne Bacrot and Sebastien Maze occasionally joining
• Portuguese: GM Krikor Mekhitarian with GMs Rafael Leitao, Gilberto Milos, Evandro Barbosa, and Sandro Mareco, and FM Juliana Terao and Rafael Leite.
• German: IM Steve Berger

The tournament's first round will be in exactly one week, on March 17, starting at 16:00 local time (noon in Central Europe, 7 a.m. Eastern and 4 a.m. Pacific).

Schedule

The participants are Caruana, Ding Liren, Alexander Grischuk, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Wang Hao, and Kirill Alekseenko. The total prize fund is 500,000 euros ($542,158) and the winner will play Carlsen in a world championship match later this year.

You can find all the information about the Candidates Tournament in our info article.