The cheat : Billionaire Nikhil Kamath beats Vishy
Hello guys,
Today I am going to tell you the cheat the billionaire Nikhil Kamath did to win against Vishy.
India's youngest Billionaire Nikhil Kamath sat down to take on Vishy Anand in the Checkmate Covid fundraiser that was organized by Chess. com India and AICF. The game began with Vishy playing 1.Nf3 and Nikhil blundering his pawn with 1...e5. It seemed like this encounter wouldn't last long. But unbelievably, Nikhil turned things around, playing one amazing move after another. Before you knew it, Vishy was already lost and the five-time World Champion resigned. In this article we have a closer look at this game and also let you know why beating a legend like Vishy, even in a simul, is never easy.
The simul with Vishy Anand
This is how the simul with Vishy Anand worked on the 13th of June 2021 - It was an online simul held on the chess. com India YouTube channel. It was for a noble initiative of raising funds through the Akshayapatra NGO for education and food for children. Vishy took on five players - Nikhil Kamath, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sudeepa Khicha, Sajid Nadiadwala and Riteish Deshmukh. Both sides had 30 minutes each. There was another batch of simul where Vishy took on four opponents - Aamir Khan, Arijit Singh, Anaya Birla and Manu Kumar Jain. If you imagined Vishy decimating 8 strong players at the Lindores Abbey simul by moving around, beating five of them in 30 minutes was not going to be too difficult. But then something truly unbelievable happened! Nikhil won his game
For someone who hasn't played chess in over 15 years, it's quite mind boggling that he could outplay Vishy Anand in this style. Here's the entire game.
White player : Vishwanathan Anand (2434), Age 51, India
Black player : Nikhil Kamath (400), Age 34, India
Date : Monday, 14 June 2021
After winning the game, Nikhil was asked by host Samay Raina if he expected anything of this sort would happen. He replied, "I think I got really lucky on the knight and bishop exchange. I think I didn't even see that the mate was covered on the other end and that thing changed it for me."
Anand was asked if he could have continued the game instead of resigning, to which Vishy replied, "What should I have done instead of resigning in that position. I think it's a bit silly to blitz. It's ok for them to try to blitz me but it would be ridiculous if I try to blitz at that point." The five time World Champion further added, "Basically after 1...e5 in the opening you don't expect this to happen and I did get a bit lost to do something with my extra pawn. Clearly I shouldn't have taken on e5 (on move 19). Maybe the whole plan was wrong. You know you just feel like you have an extra pawn and matters would take care of themselves. But then at some point I could not detect a single mistake in his moves. They were just all perfect, tactically also perfect, everything worked. After 28...Bg4 Bxg4 Nxg4 is nice but also Qxh2, I didn't see what to do. But by then it's just too late. I don't think it matters what I do at that point."
Some key moments of the game which are truly striking, are the following:
Vishy Anand vs Nikhil Kamath
