Anand

Anand is a world champion in the true sense.Not only a "official" title holder.He stands to represent the word "champion".He has certainly raised the level of the "WCC" title(not that it was any less standard title before,but in the history of chess, often dominating champions have given up the title when they were truly the "champion of chess" for ex fischer giving up the title after winning it against Spassky in the way of a champion but fortunately for the royal game of chess Karpov also showed that why he should be a world chess champion by holding it on the champion way,then there was Kasparov who caused the split between FIDE and PCA(I am not sure of the organisation's name but I think Iam right correct me if iam wrong) and once again the official world chess championship's prestige was decreased because he was was a champion untill the death of his career,though Kramnik defeated him at the end but still,he only did good for other top players because had he not caused his early retirement not only could he become the wcc again for sure,in most cases the 1st place in a tournament used to be reserved for him whenever he played and last but not the least that that epic toilet beauty contest between two of the greatest chess players certainly ever born,but can a championship decided in such a manner of illigations bring any prestige to the wcc?How can the answer be yes!?Obviously no.Certainly a man of kramnik's calibure and experience will never use such means,thats my view.Iam not just saying this from the point of view of his chess skill but also because he is a man who has gone through all his life with this game of chess which he romances.In such a long career he must have faced tons of defeats and embarrasing losses but he will never deceive this game of chess by calling himself the wcc by some cheap standards.What iam happy about topalov's potty mouth is that at the end he said that if he is playing kramnik till the end after his cheating discovery,this means that Kramnik is playing fair.Certainly Kramnik did defend the the prestige of the titleas after facing such unfair things topa did not deserve the wcc and at the end two things happened:Kramnik won and topa says that kramnik was playing fair.Ever since that Anand has maintained the true status of a champ.Now a little back into the history I don't think that Lasker could be called be the man who raised tye standard of the wcc.He did both!.When we won the title and in his entirely career he has shown himself to be more or less to be a chess king a.k.a champ.But he could have dominated the game for 27 years but not necessarily hung on to the championship for entire 27 years.He never gave any chance/fair chance to other players who threatened to be the wcc such as Rubinstein.Same goes with alekhine.After winning he never gave a rematch to Capablanca and after that he faces a chap known as Bogolyubov not for one but two times so that he got the title in an easy way.)

In the current world of top notch computers where you can book up everything,which has increased the number of gms and ims in the world there have been discussion about creating a title supreme than the gm title.At present the only title above gm is Wcc and in the present world of tonnes of gms the wcc is just one single title(one ticket for the train available while thousand of travellers want that tiny little ticket worth a gold)  that only one person can have at a time.It itself speaks for anand's champion skills.And he is not a chap who someway  somehow won the title once and eventually gave it up to another top notch gm.He has hung on to the title in the way of a king which makes him one of the GREATEST PLAYER OF ALL TIME.

Nice article Don

Thanks vijay